Archive for Service updates

How we are working to help charities integrate data

May 13, 2009 at 5:09 pm · Filed under In the News, Justgiving for Charities, Service updates ·Tagged , ,

At the end of 2008, we spoke to a number of charities about the data integration issues facing them, when importing Justgiving data into a range of different and highly customised donor databases. We recognised that although the issue was complex, there were ways we could make life easier. So what have we done since then?

We’ve used their input to develop a number of immediate enhancements, including the bulk custom code uploader we released in March, and the development of an XML output format (more details below). However, these were just the first steps in an ongoing process.

We want to make sure that charities experience great and seamless data integration – our vision is to help get data from JustGiving straight into charity CRM systems without the need for manual processes.

We’ve written a data integration consultation document that we would really welcome your input on it.

Its purpose is to:

  • give an overview of our findings
  • detail steps to help integration
  • give an overview of the tools currently available and those developed as a result of original charity feedback
  • discuss our vision to better serve your needs
  • give an overview of the first phase of work
  • invite your feedback on what priorities you see as most important

Download the document here:
JustGiving Data Integration Consultation May 2009 (pdf 889 kb)

We’d be very grateful if you could send us your feedback to datateam@justgiving.com by Friday, 26 June 2009

Addition of XML format for payment reports

From Wednesday 27 May, you’ll see an additional option when you download your payment reports in the charity account. As well as the CSV and Excel files, there will be an option to download in a new output format of XML. This will enable you to use the data we provide using many more systems. We’ll be providing an XSLT template to help you transform XML into different formats.

For the first release, you will only be able to download donation payment reports in XML, not Gift Aid payment reports. Here’s how that looks:

xml_payment_reports

Update – Due to some technical delays, we won’t be releasing this update to reports until Friday 5th June

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JustGiving’s Facebook app is back

January 29, 2009 at 3:38 pm · Filed under Charity resources, Justgiving Resources, Justgiving Technology, Our News, Service updates ·Tagged , , , , ,

facebook_logo

We’re really glad to welcome back our JustGiving Facebook app: http://apps.facebook.com/justgiving/

It needed updating because of changes to Facebook’s platform, and it’s now back up and running. So you can add it to your Facebook profile and promote your own and your friends’ fundraising pages. Plus we’ve taken the opportunity to add some extra functionality – so you can now use it to invite your Facebook friends to donate.

There may still be a few small bugs with it, but with your help and feedback, we can work on fixing those. So please email us at facebook@justgiving.com

And remember that, as well as using our Facebook app, you can read our 10 best ways to use Facebook to fundraise – JustGiving Edition.

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Facebook app illness

October 23, 2008 at 2:51 pm · Filed under Service updates ·Tagged

Our Facebook app is ill :-(

The changes Facebook made to their profiles recently have stopped it from working and it’s taking us a while to get it back up and running.

We’re really sorry you haven’t been able to use it for a little while, and we’d like to suggest that, for now, you add a link to your status or your wall.

In the meantime, we’re finding someone to look after our app so this kind of thing doesn’t keep happening.

Get well soon JG Facebook app.


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Justgiving’s *new* processing partner is… the *old* one

September 5, 2008 at 10:58 am · Filed under Service updates ·Tagged

You may remember our recent announcement about a change in Justgiving’s payment processor.

You may or may not also recall the line in Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi where she sings, “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”.

That refrain would be an appropriate sentiment in this instance, because it turns out that the service provided by the new payment processor (RBS Lynk Inc – RBS) did not meet the bespoke requirements we agreed, nor did it match our high expectations or the promised levels of support.

Our technical team worked extremely hard to make the change happen, but it just wasn’t the better service that we believed it was going to be.

We’ve discussed our concerns at length with the senior management team at RBS and they’re looking at how they could offer us a better support structure in future.

What does this mean for Justgiving?

We’re switching back to our previous payment processing partner (Barclaycard Merchant Services – BMS) for the majority of donations made on Justgiving, with only a small percentage of donations being processed through RBS.

This is so we can compare the two services for the foreseeable future and ensure that we make the right decision on which one to partner with in the long term. It also means that, if one of the services is experiencing downtime, we can switch to the other and make sure all donations made on the site are processed successfully.

At the same time, BMS is investing heavily in its platform and aiming to launch a much improved offering in the coming months.

What does this mean for your charity?

Another change in the card fees. Some not so good, some *very* good. But again, we’ve negotiated hard to get the best possible fees for you.

All fees exclude the need to have Verified by VISA (VBV) or MasterCard SecureCode (MCSC) on our website (except for Maestro where it is mandatory). They are the fees that BMS charge us and that we pass on to charities at cost:

•    Credit cards (Visa/Mastercard) = 1.45% (previously 1.34% with RBS)
•    Business credit cards (new card rate) = 1.85%
•    Debit cards (Switch/Maestro/Solo) = 16.25p per donation (was 22p)
•    Visa Delta/Visa Electron = 23p per donation (was 22p)
•    Business debit cards (new card rate) = 30p

The credit card fee has gone up ever so slightly, but the Maestro rate is considerably less than it used to be.

We’ve analysed the last 3 months’ donations on the site and Maestro cards accounted for around a quarter of all donations – so the card fees charged to charities will, on the whole, be about the same.

What happens next?

We’ve only this week decided to switch back and confirmed it with the two services. The new card fees will take effect from today, Friday 5th September.

We’ll be monitoring the performance of both BMS and RBS to make sure we choose the one that will allow us to offer the best possible service to charities.

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More improvements to Justgiving’s infrastructure

August 22, 2008 at 12:58 pm · Filed under In the News, Service updates ·Tagged , , ,

**Update 1st September**

Due to a technical delay, the planned update to servers did not go ahead last Friday and will instead take place between the hours of midnight Friday 5th September and 8.00 am on Saturday 6th September.

**Update 1st September**

Over the weekend of the 30th August, we’ll be making the latest in a long line of improvements to the multi-million pound infrastructure and systems that serve the Justgiving website. We’re upgrading to brand new, state-of-the-art servers (the seriously powerful computers that run the website) and moving to a new hosting environment, Qube (the people who host and services those computers).

When is it taking place?

In order to make the move, the Justgiving site will be unavailable between the hours of midnight Friday 29th August, and 8.00 am on Saturday 30th August.

This is just like our normal scheduled maintenance periods where anyone visiting the site will be shown a holding page and will be unable to create a fundraising page or make a donation.

What does this mean?

It should make the site much faster than it is now, with fundraising pages downloading much more quickly, searches taking less time and a better overall performance.

This also paves the way for us to have a dedicated server that’s only used to power charity reporting (to go with the recent changes that made reporting faster and minimised its effect on the rest of the website). So when you create and download a huge report in the future, it won’t affect the site.

Think of it in terms of the website being like the old DeLorean (of Back to the future fame) at the moment, and the improvements making it like the rumoured new DeLorean, complete with a spare ‘flux capacitor‘ that will kick in seamlessly if the first breaks:

Old_server_vs_new_server_3

You see, not only is the ‘engine’ that powers the site going to be a lot better, we’ll also have a spare ‘engine’ that will start up in the unlikely event of the first one not working – meaning the site will be much more robust and reliable, as well as speedier.

We moved our sister site, firstgiving.com, to this new provider over a month ago, and they have experienced a great improvement in the site. We’re hoping for much of the same.

The *techy* details…

Just in case any web systems or operations people are reading this, here’s what our new hardware includes:

  • Two new database clusters – each consisting of two Quad Core Xeon machines with 8GB apiece, full network and power redundancy and 64-bit throughout

All impressive sounding stuff, even if I don’t have a clue what most of them are. Suffice to say, running a website like ours and making it look simple on the front end is a *lot* more complicated than you might think…

So, thanks to our Operations Manager Charlie for providing the details and managing the project – see him below receiving a well deserved cake for last month’s ‘Annual System Administrator Appreciation Day‘…

Charlie

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