Expert Advice

Welcome! We’ve hand selected some of our most knowledgeable Encompass users to share tips and suggestions for maximizing the tools you use every day within the Encompass platform. Tips are arranged by area/topic.

Admin Rights

(Account Management, Encompass - July 03, 2018)

Have you wanted to streamline your member searches and easily take actions on behalf of a member? What about easily access and manage the community admin rights for a member? Now is the time to check out the new Constituent Management View functionality!

Access Member Look-up under the Members menu.
Then search using Member Name, Email, Member ID or Constituent ID. The results can include non-member/guest records.

You can now easily edit the member record and their admin rights, reset their password, take action on behalf of the member, and view their history.

The Constituent Management View functionality provides several benefits.

Improved search makes it easy to find member and non-member records based on first name, last name, email address or unique ID.
Creates a unified point of entry for interactions with or on behalf of a person.
Streamlines the process for taking actions as the constituent in the system.

For more information, visit the Constituent Management View page in the Support Center.

(Training, Encompass - December 19, 2017)

If an admin already has an alumni account or donor account, create a separate (Admin) account with the appropriate admin rights to ensure an easier clean-up if the admin leaves. This way the alumni or donor account maintains the transactional data, and the admin account only has a record of admin transactions. This also assists in the use of the Pre-poplulate functionality for Forms, Events, Donations, and Memberships for admins.

Admins will NOT be able to fully utilize a pre-populate link. Admins will be taken to a window that indicates that as an admin you will not see your data pre-populated in the form.This page tells you that pre-population is enabled and functioning. The admins are provided a "Continue" link that takes them to the linked form, with no information pre-populated and administrative options will still not be available.

(Training, Encompass - August 28, 2018)

Onboarding New Encompass Admins

The information on this page may be helpful to you if you have new Encompass admins joining your team. This includes getting an admin set up in the system and training opportunities for each module.

https://support.imodules.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014877812-Onboarding-a-New-iModules-Admin

Campaign Progress Indicators

(Project Management, Encompass - October 31, 2017)

We have some sample HTML for customized campaign progress indicators that was presented at Sizzler 2016: http://design.imodules.com/s/1580/erin/sizzler16/interior.aspx?sid=1580&gid=4&sitebuilder=1&pgid=1765!

Content Editor

(Training, Encompass - November 28, 2017)

To maintain the formatting when replacing text in a content editor on a web page or within an email, edit between the first and the last character in the sentence, title, or paragraph that you would like to replace. This will ensure that the new text will retain the same color, font and style as the original text without having to access HTML.

(Training, Encompass - November 7, 2017)

When working in the editor, there is a big difference between using the "Enter" button and using "Shift+Enter". "Enter" is a paragraph break, whereas "Shift+Enter" is only a new line.

Content Management

(Marketing/Professional Services, Encompass - July 24, 2018)

Consider including an image of the Leaderboard in an email and targeting alumni by designation affiliation (i.e. major, school of study, etc.) for a more personalized ask. Use URL customization (&dids=) to pre-populate the giving form with the appropriate designation for that recipient.

Using an image of the Map module, the email can be sent to donors of states who have not given yet.

Ensure you use text in the email, in case the recipient has images blocked.

For more information on Leaderboards and Maps, visit the Scoreboards page in the Support Center:
https://support.imodules.com/hc/en-us/categories/360000300411-Scoreboards

Contact your Account Representative if you would like to discuss the addition of the Scoreboards modules to your community.

(Cristine Easterbrook, Georgia Tech Alumni Association - June 05, 2018)

Our web team like to add Give buttons and registration buttons on content pages from time to time, so we have found it helpful to keep a log of prepared button HTML in our shared folders and label the text files things like "Small Yellow Give Button" or "Large Gold Homecoming Registration Button" that way they are on hand and we are all using the same things.

Here is the button code:

Add this in a content block at the top of a page:

Add this in the content where you want the button to appear:

<div class="fundGive">
<a href="[LINK HERE]">Custom Text</a>
</div>

(Cristina Easterbrook, Georgia Tech Alumni Association - May 15, 2018)

3 Ways to Use the [Module_ID]

Four across thermometers for your crowd funding efforts:
- This was helpful when we wanted to add thermometers and crowd funding to our GTAlumni homepage as well as our main giving day page. We need to use specific thermometers because we were adding in gifts from non Encompass gifts. Just set up the thermometer, and place [Module_ID:ecid] which you can find in the URL on the editor window.
Tagboard:
- For our 2018 Giving Day we wanted to spread out and add Tagboard (social media display) to homepages throughout our communities. App support helped us place Tagboard code on GID1 and gave me the [Module_ID] to use on our alumni and student sub communities. This helped us make quick flips on giving day and eliminated a second call to app support to remove Tagboard when the event was over.
Event Finish Pages:
- Build your event
- Build a news listing for your event landing page in a separate test page
- Add the following code to your finish page: i. [MODULE_ID:ecid]
- Add the following code to the preceding registration pages: i. .news {display: none;} ".
- **Note from Professional Services:
  - A content block was placed on the form page (user side).
  - Inside the content block, HTML defined a new style, as well as wrapped any Module ID that they would like to have display on one (or more) of the pages. The setting is going to be to hide these by default with this new class:
    - <style> .giving {display:none;} </style> <span class="giving">[MODULE_ID: 21520][MODULE_ID: 21521][MODULE_ID: 21522][MODULE_ID: 21523][MODULE_ID: 21524][MODULE_ID: 21525][MODULE_ID: 21526][MODULE_ID: 21527][MODULE_ID: 21528][MODULE_ID: 21529][MODULE_ID: 21530][MODULE_ID: 21531][MODULE_ID: 21532][MODULE_ID: 21533][MODULE_ID: 21534][MODULE_ID: 21535][MODULE_ID: 21536][MODULE_ID: 21537][MODULE_ID: 21538][MODULE_ID: 21539][MODULE_ID: 21540][MODULE_ID: 21541][MODULE_ID: 21542][MODULE_ID: 21543][MODULE_ID: 21544][MODULE_ID: 21553][MODULE_ID: 21554][MODULE_ID: 21555][MODULE_ID: 21556][MODULE_ID: 21557][MODULE_ID: 21558][MODULE_ID: 21559][MODULE_ID: 21560][MODULE_ID: 21561][MODULE_ID: 21562][MODULE_ID: 21563]</span>
  - On the step of the form you want the module ids to show up, place somewhere on the step:
  - <style> .giving{display:block!important} </style>
  - Tip: If this is just appearing on the finish page (which is the intent) form tokens work anywhere on the page (not just the finish page WYSIWYG editor). Essentially clients can place ALL finish page text (and tokens) in this new content block to get the ordering and appearance they are looking for on the page.
  - The billing page strips out the HTML <style> definitions so this workaround was put in place to avoid any HTML on that billing step.

(Kevin Hemphill, University of West Georgia - April 24, 2018)

Need to build up your class notes database? Sign up for Google Alerts using keywords like your institution's full name, your alumni association's name, etc. and get daily emails of articles and links that match the search. Find a good alumni story? Add it as a class note under their record.

(Chase Carter, Oklahoma State University Alumni Association - March 06, 2018)

Working on a new website or redesign? Use a spreadsheet software like Excel to track your progress! Each row should correspond to a specific page, and you can nest certain rows under others to replicate your site map. Use columns for items related to each page including writing out a purpose for the page, designating a page owner, identifying a short URL and providing a page status. This status will allow you to track what pages need copy, graphics or are finished. You can also use a sharable spreadsheet like Google Sheets so multiple people can be updating the sheet at the same time.

(Training, Encompass - October 24, 2017)

Did you know when adding a video to a page in your Encompass site, you should first go to http://embedresponsively.com/ to ensure the video is mobile-friendly and isn't restricted to specific sizes? This works great with YouTube videos and Google Maps!

(Professional Services/Application Support, Encompass - October 10, 2017)

If you would like to return the user to a specific page after they log in, you can append "&returnurl=" and paste in the encoded url to the end of your secure login URL.
Start with a link to your login page.
After the login url, you add “&returnurl=”.
This is when the encoding site comes into play. You can get the encoded URL from: http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/dencoder/ or http://www.albionresearch.com/misc/urlencode. You take the url for the location you want them to arrive after login, and place it in the url encoding area.
After you have copied the encoded url, add it to the login page link “(link to clients login page)&returnurl=HERE-IS-WHERE-YOU-PASTE-THE-ENCODED-VALUE”.

Data

(Training, Encompass - August 06, 2018)

(Data Team, Encompass - May 22, 2018)

In both the Data Viewer tool and Creating Roles tool there exists a 'contains' operator. This operator is used to find matches to the provided substring in a field's data.

The data in the field can be longer than the substring.
- Example: the substring '234' would match to field values like '12345'.
The wildcard underscore (_) can be used. This is useful when requiring values to be a certain length or skipping over variable characters.
- Example 1: Finding constituent IDs that have leading zeroes and are (at least) ten digits long: 0_________ (that is a zero followed by nine underscores).
- Example 2: Filtering 3 character activity codes that start with an 'A' and end with a 'G': A_G
Filters for individual characters can be assigned with brackets '[]' including the "not equal to" caret character (^)
- Example 1: Character that is not a number [^0-9] or that is not a letter in the alphabet [^a-z]. This can be used to check for characters/numbers in a field.
- Example 2: 'Grand[mp]a' would match to both 'Grandma' and 'Grandpa' because both match the criteria of 'm' or 'p' for the substring.
- Example 3: '[a-z]ary' would match to 'Gary', 'Cary', 'Mary', etc.
- Example 4: '[^m]ary' would match to everything in the previous example, except 'Mary'.
- Example 5: Matching constituent/activity codes that start with a specific letter like 'A', 'B', or 'G': [abg]__

Other operators

Other operators "Starts with" and "Ends with" are available in the Data Viewer and can use wildcards underscore (_) and brackets []. "Starts with" and "Ends with" is not available when role-basing on a field.

For more information and strategy on assigning Roles based on zip code prefixes, visit the Zip Code Role-Basing and the 'Contains' Operator page on the Support Center!

(Becky Johnson, Purdue Research Foundation - October 10, 2017)

For external data loads - I run a query once a week for any record with a Constituent ID and no first name and last name. This tells me if any non-Connector or manual load has added a new record. All new records should be added using the Connector. The Connector sends all the bio data to Encompass . If there is no bio data then these non complete records tell me that one of these loads isn't using the required excludes or if my normal load somehow missed this record. I am able to keep track of records that shouldn't be transferred from Advance to Encompass this way.

Donations

(Strategic Consulting/Account Management, Encompass - August 21, 2018)

Giving Form Best Practices

Make sure your donation page is mobile friendly and that on the mobile view, it is easy to use. Limit the number of links to other parts of your site on the form as the main focus should be on completing the donation.
Limit the number of fields on the form to only the most important information.
Include in memory of and in honor of options on the donation form.
Enable perpetual giving options and/or scheduled payments.
Include a field for additional comments on the donation form so donors have a chance to share comments/questions about their donation.
Customize finish button to say Make a Gift or something similar.
Use pre-population on the donation form so that a donor’s contact information will already be filled in for them, reducing the amount of information that donors have to fill out before completing their gift.
Use appeal codes on all links to donation form to track how donors are reaching your form.
Give donors the opportunity to share their donation on Facebook (activate Facebook share option on finish step).
Incorporate matching gift information on the donation page to make it easy for donors to see whether their employer matches their gift.

(Application Support, Encompass - July 17, 2018)

Create a separate, or unique, donation form for tracking offline gifts.

Admins can enter gifts using "Skip Billing" on the separate donation campaign form. Since Skipped billing donations don’t appear in reconciliation reports, using a separate form for offline gifts will help with reporting. Admins can run the Giving Transaction Export for all online transactions, and then run one additional report for the offline donations form that uses "Skipped Billing."

(Strategic Consulting, Encompass - April 09, 2018)

Excerpt from the Online Giving Trends in Higher Education Whitepaper. Access all Whitepapers and additional resources HERE.

Online and mobile giving continues to grow and will remain a significant focus for the fundraising approach in higher education. As a result, we anticipate the following in 2018:

· Continued emphasis on making the online giving process seamless and simple across all devices for donors, as research shows an increasing number of donations from mobile.

· Ability for donors to easily give to their preferred philanthropic priorities by offering a variety of funds for donors to support, as this increases the likelihood of giving.

· Increasing the personalization and segmentation of email communications to further engage current and prospective donors; institutions should endeavor to provide information on the impact of a specific donor’s previous gift(s), include customized ask amounts, and share content relevant to the individual prospective or current donor.

· Maintaining a greater focus on repeat gifts by making recurring donation options more prominent on giving forms; McMaster University saw an 88% increase in donors opting for a recurring gift in the same six-month period year-over-year.

· More institutions incorporating other areas of focus into their days of giving in an attempt to appeal to a broader audience and keep strategy fresh, which is particularly important for those who have executed multiple days of giving in the past.

(Strategic Consulting, Encompass - March 27, 2018)

As you’re reviewing those email stats, if you notice that you have a high click-to-open rate, but you’re not converting donors, then that could be an indication that your giving form is difficult to use. So here are some quick best practices for your giving form.

You can change your data strategy completely, but if your giving form is not easy to use, it won’t make a big difference. Best practices include making sure that the giving form is easy to reach and that it takes one click to reach the giving form from alumni and giving pages. There should also be a clear call to action on your site, such as a Give Now button.

Having pre-population on your giving form will also make the giving process easier when constituents are clicking from email, as all of their profile information will already be filled in for them, such as their name and address.

This leads right into the next point of not including too many fields on your giving form. Your form should only include fields that are necessary for constituents to make a gift. If you have a lot of additional fields on your form, review those internally to determine whether are important and look at how often donors complete these. A common one that I see is asking why they chose to make a gift. That might be good information to gather, but if you’re not looking at that information to help inform your communications, then it’s probably not worth including on your giving form.

Speaking of fields, this is also a good opportunity to review the order of fields on the form. The donation amount should be the first field on the form. Donors are going to the giving form with the intent of making a gift – they shouldn’t be presented with personal information fields first and only once they have filled these out, reach the donation field. By that point, they may have changed their mind about the amount that they would like to give.

(Mort Peyvandi, University of California, Merced - March 20, 2018)

Do you want to provide your users with a specific link that has an auto-filled donation amount? How about a specific fund? Yes, you guessed it right, you can do this by using parameters. But wait there is more... with parameters you can use a specific payment method and also a hidden value as a tracking code. Here is an example of a link we use in our emails:
https://securelb.imodules.com/s/1650/index.aspx?sid=1650&gid=1&pgid=1694&dids=31&appealcode=17_18_UCMAA_BOARD&bledit=1&amount=1920&utm_source=amount_button&paymenttype=scheduledonly

The parameters we are using in this email:
&dids=31 [pre-selected designation(s)]
&appealcode=17_18_UCMAA_BOARD [appeal code]
&bledit=1 [Non-editable selected designation(s)]
&amount=1920 [auto-fill donation amount]
&utm_source=amount_button [hidden value used as a tracking code] *
&paymenttype=scheduledonly [specific payment type]

*Make sure to check out the April special webinar, Hidden Value Fields can do WHAT? https://clients.imodules.com/s/1333/16/ip2.aspx?sid=1333&gid=3&pgid=3876.

For more information on URL customization options available for all form types (including a downloadable cheat sheet) check out The Power of URL Customization resource page!
https://support.imodules.com/hc/en-us/articles/218802167-The-Power-of-URL-Customization

(Training, Encompass - October 17, 2017)

Before launching your Campaign to constituents, and after completing all needed test submissions, contact Application Support and ask for all submissions to be purged. This is an all or nothing purge, so make sure you only have test submissions when you make the request.

Email Marketing

(Training, Encompass - August 28, 2018)

New Email Marketing

As you are hard at work creating templates within the new Email Marketing tools, be sure to check out our Template Creation Best Practices page for helpful tips and guidance on how to fully utilize the available tools within the new editor!

(Training, Encompass - June 26, 2018)

Do you create documentation for staff and/or volunteers? If so, you'll want to check out the sample step-by-step instructions for the new Email Marketing tools. The instructions should be a starting point for any documentation you need to create for staff and/or volunteers. This will be a dynamic document and will be updated as more functionality is released.

(Training, Encompass - June 18, 2018)

Are you working on rebuilding your existing email templates or creating new templates using the Beta Email Template Editor? There are two video series available to help walk you through each of these scenarios using real life examples, including tips straight from the Encompass Design team.

In the following video series, we move between an existing template and the new Email Marketing functionality. Special thanks to DeVry University for allowing us to use their template as an example.
https://support.imodules.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004523071-Rebuilding-an-Existing-Email-Template

In the following video series, we walk you through how to build a multipurpose email template. A multipurpose template provides different content options for admins so they can use the template for a variety of different messages.
https://support.imodules.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004054872-Creating-a-Multipurpose-Email-Template

For more information on the Beta Email Template Editor, please visit the FAQ here.

(Angelique Felgentreff, Mills College - June 12, 2018)

GDPR is this year's big deal for consent-based email marketing regulations, but don't forget about other regulations that may govern your email marketing activities in non-EEA countries. For example, your organization may fall into some of the categories that CASL (Canada Anti-Spam Law) governs. One of the provisions of CASL covers email marketing to individuals for whom you have implied consent. Implied consent can apply to recipients with whom you have a previously established relationship (e.g. they have bought something from you or made a donation) but expires after a two year period if not renewed by the constituent. Make sure you're working with your legal team to identify applicable regulations and then make sure you're adequately managing to those with your constituent database and send rules.

**For more information on GDPR visit this page in the Support Center: https://support.imodules.com/hc/en-us/sections/360000104791-GDPR-General-Data-Protection-Regulation-

(Kristen Ziegler, Saint Joseph's University - May 22, 2018)

Email/Events

If you need to send a reminder email about something and don't have time to de-dup the list, use the "query tool" to do it for you.

Open your invite list in excel and copy all of the IDs or email addresses.
Open the "Choose Recipients" tab in your email builder.
Select "Configure" under data viewer.
Create a new query.
Select your original identifier (email or constituent ID) and "add selected fields" to the query.
Select "Search multiple values" and paste your list of IDs or emails.
Select the "Add Field" button, open the events folder and find your event. You'll need to navigate into your event or activity to select "Registrant is registered."
For this field, select "does not have a value" from the dropdown.
Apply the query to check your results.
Click "Next."
Decide whether you want to save the query or not. (Auto-checked by default.) Click "Next."
The query will load for your email. Click "Save and Continue" to save your results

(Kristen Ziegler, Saint Joseph's Unviersity - May 08, 2018)

If you need to send a reminder email about something and don't have time to de-dup the list, use the "query tool" to do it for you.

Open your list in excel and copy all of the IDs or email addresses.
Open the "Choose Recipients" tab in your email builder.
Select "Configure" under data viewer.
Create a new query.
Select your original identifier (email or constituent ID) and "add selected fields" to the query.
Select "Search multiple values" and paste your list of IDs or emails.
Select the "Add Field" button, open the events folder and find your event. You'll need to navigate into your event or activity to select "Registrant is registered."
For this field, select "does not have a value" from the dropdown.
Apply the query to check your results.
Click "Next."
Decide whether you want to save the query or not. (Auto-checked by default.) Click "Next."
The query will load for your email.
Click "Save and Continue" to save your results.

(Mort Peyvandi, University of California, Merced - April 3, 2018)

Did you know that in Email Builder under Send Preview tab, you can add HTML in the Additional Comments section? I have been using this section to include notes about when the email is scheduled, who received a copy of the preview, and who to send feedback to.

**You can click on the image to view a larger version.

(Chase Carter, Oklahoma State University Alumni Association - December 5, 2017)

Hosting an event with several different groups attending? Send your registrants an electronic "ticket" using email marketing, and change the background color of the email to differentiate between them! We use our main school colors (orange, black, silver) as ticket colors when we email graduating seniors for their celebration event. The colors correspond with check-in tables at the event for the various groups depending on whether they're a life member, need to start a payment plan or need to join. We also include name, ID number and membership status as tokens in the email for quick reference.

(Debbi Johanning, KU Alumni Association - October 17, 2017)

This is a simple tip, but one that has been very helpful for us. Clients don't have the ability to delete custom lists in Email Marketing. We use a lot of custom lists to copy department or university staff, or other interested parties who don't meet the criteria for a particular email but want to receive a copy. We have a lot of custom lists that contain a single person. However, sometimes people leave the university, and we aren't able to remove the custom list from our system. We edit the list name to include "XX" as the first two characters, which moves it to the bottom of the custom list page and out of the active lists. Then, we contact Encompass and simply ask them to delete all custom lists that begin with "XX". If you use a lot of custom lists like we do, this might be a helpful tip to keep you list of lists more manageable!

(Professional Services/Application Support, Encompass - October 10, 2017)

Events

(Professional Services, Encompass - July 10, 2018)

Have you tried using hidden values to put guests into roles behind the scenes?

The idea behind this is that you can apply roles to guests without having to select values FOR each guest. A registrant selects values on Step 1 (often affiliation, class year, which days they are attending). Roles are assigned to the registrant as they move on to the Guest Step:

On the Guest Step, a hidden value is created for each role that you want to assign to the guest. Each hidden value created is role-based to a registrant role that is applicable, so that value ONLY gets assigned to the guest if the registant has that role. For example, Class of 1968: Rather than having to have the registrant indicate that each guest is to be connected to the registrant’s class year, a hidden value for 1968 guest is created:

This field is role-based to the Class of 1968 role the registrant has. The other hidden value class years won’t be applied to the guests, since the registrant was not in the roles assigned to them:

With hidden values, you assign whatever the value is via a text entry. Typically we just enter “true” out of habit, but it can be “yes” or whatever you want. You then create a role for this field, which will then be applied to the guest. The role name should indicate it’s for the guest and the value should match whatever the permanent value was you entered for the field:

What’s the point of doing this? While setting an activity to focus on the primary registrant’s roles is fine to ensure guests can attend what the primary registrant qualifies for, it doesn’t address the issue of there being different prices or questions between registrant and guests. Using hidden values give admins more flexibility in customizing their activities because the activity can be set to look at the individual roles of the registrant and guests. Not only can you then used varied pricing for between registrant and guests like the example above of class year, but could also apply pricing or questions on other unique roles that may have come from the guest step, like their connection to the registrant (spouse, child/teen) and other values that might dictate different pricing. This flexibility can’t occur if you drive activities solely off the registrant’s roles, in which case guest roles are ignored when creating role-based prices or questions:

Check out the Hidden Values page in the Support Center for more information!

(Kevin Hemphill, University of West Georgia - May 01, 2018)

Do your event registrations often follow the same setup, format, and layout for each event? Save time! Create a hidden event and name it "Event Template." Format it how you want - including the fields and categories included in the form, the review and finish pages, and your admin and member confirmation emails. View Content and edit the layout of the landing page (if needed). Save the "event" as an "Event Template" and then utilize the "Create from Template" option for every event following.

*Review the Cloning Checklist when creating from a template (cloning) for Forms, Events and Donations.

(Olivier Gilloux, Dartmouth - March 13, 2018)

When you create a more complex form using role-based content, it is often best to add some Rich Text that is role-based to Super Admin (and the appropriate Forms or Events admins) explaining the logic of your form. You can use new categories (don't forget to disable the header) to hold that Rich Text.

(Olivier Gilloux, Dartmouth - February 27, 2018)

If you want to allow some invitees to benefit from a special pricing when they register for an event, you should use a combination of tokenized hidden value and role: https://support.imodules.com/hc/en-us/articles/218262368-Tokenized-Hidden-Values-Appeal-Codes-for-Non-commerce-Forms-#Example_#2:%C2%A0_Using_Tokenized_Hidden_Values_for_Events.
You will end up with a custom URL to share with this group of invitees. Since the token and value are part of the URL, make sure they're okay for users to see.

You can use a similar method for tracking registration sources:
https://support.imodules.com/hc/en-us/articles/218262368-Tokenized-Hidden-Values-Appeal-Codes-for-Non-commerce-Forms-#Example_#1:%C2%A0Using_Tokenized_Hidden_Values_for_Tracking.
You can use different values for each email campaign, any online link, as well as your links in print communications (though I would recommend using a URL shortener for links in print material).

*** For more information on Hidden Values, check out the upcoming Hidden Value Fields can do WHAT? special webinar on April 23 and April 27. Register for this webinar and others on the Special Training Webinars page!

(Training, Encompass - February 13, 2018)

Do you create events for your clubs, chapters, volunteers, or other departments? Consider creating an Event Request Form using the Forms module! Add new, potentially required, fields to collect the information that you need to create an event for another group. These should be created with the Storage Mode of Instanced. This will save you from playing email tag to get all of the information you need to create a robust event.

(Olivier Gilloux, Dartmouth - February 06, 2018)

Looking for ways to make your event registration forms prettier and mobile friendly? I use the Column Layout Snippets you can find on the Support Center (https://support.imodules.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003938292-Column-Layout-Snippets) to format activity or category instructions/descriptions. You can get some nice 2-column layouts (e.g.: text/picture) that also stack on mobile.

(Mort Peyvandi, University of California, Merced - January 30, 2018)

Ok, so you added “Add to Calendar” to your emails. What are the features of the iCal calendar and how they are related to Events? As you can see from screenshot below, here is the information you need so make sure you are using descriptive information when completing your Event Details page.

(Mort Peyvandi, University of California, Mercedn - January 22, 2018)

If you are not using “Add to Calendar” you should be. We include this feature in the following areas: Calendar of events (https://giving.ucmerced.edu/events). Add [iCalURL] to your finish page message on events. Add [iCalURL] to your member confirmation email body. To include this on your email invitations, go to your Event Listings and copy the link for the specific event. It should be something similar to this, https://giving.ucmerced.edu/controls/cms_v2/Components/iCalendar/iCalendar.aspx?sid=1650&contentid=1809&ciid=14400&crid=0&type_alias=[event]

(Olivier Gilloux, Dartmouth - January 16, 2018)

For our Reunions, we create individual event forms for each class (~11 or 12). We create an event in GID1 with all the default fields, activities, and roles, and save it as a template. We then create all the individual event forms to add specific information/activities, etc. The roles still work, even if the forms are created in sub-communities, and it's a great time saver to use a template. We also create a "dashboard" page for our admins managing the Reunions forms. On this, we have links to the back-end of each form, but also links to the Registration Summary reports (Optimized Event Exports). These links go directly to run the reports, since you can copy the URL of the page where you run an optimized event export. This is also a great time saver for our admins that don't need to know where the report is or to use the gear icon to run it. One click and they're all set.

(Professional Services, Encompass - December 5, 2017)

For activity commerce items, use the name of the activity as part of the field name. (Confirmation emails will make it easier for registrants to know what activity it is, since we so often hide the activity headers and won’t show in emails.)

(Olivier Gilloux, Dartmouth - November 28, 2017)

When I work on an event with activities (lots of them) and I need to make changes to several of them in the Activity Settings, if my changes are only on that first page of the Activity Properties (e.g.: date, audience, instructions), I simply click save and when the window displays the next page (description, contact, etc.), I click the red "x" at the top right corner of the window. My changes are saved but the page will not refresh...which allows me to save some time and continue just where I am on the form. Whenever I'm done, I just refresh the page to display all my changes.

(Mort Peyvandi, University of California, Merced - November 21, 2017)

Want to see how many emails you have going today? This week? This month? You don't need to worry, you can just go to Email > Email Calendar to see all this information. For your emails to appear on the calendar, just Schedule the Email. You can still leave the email in Saved Drafts and it will appear on the Email Calendar. **Once you schedule an email you always have to have a date. So if your email is postponed, just choose a future date like 01/01/18.

(Lauren Lakomek, Northwestern University - November 14, 2017)

Use "Add this event to your calendar" hyperlinks in your event invitation email/reminder or on the Event Details page of the event itself to help alumni keep track of the event date. First, use the program or online tool of your choice to save a calendar appointment as a .ical file. Then, upload this file to your site's "File Library". Once uploaded, click the pencil icon as if you were going to make an edit to the file. There, you will see a maroon hyperlink to the .ical file you uploaded. Right click to save the hyperlink and then use that hyperlink wherever makes sense.

(Kate Jolly, Purdue Research Foundation - November 7, 2017)

Need help making a form or event look nice? Utilize iModules quick coding to help. No CSS experience needed Link: https://support.imodules.com/hc/en-us/articles/218265118-CSS-Customization-Options-on-Forms-Events-Campaigns

(Jeanna Dawson, Emory University Alumni Association - October 31, 2017)

This will change your life! When you are making edits under View Content > Layout Edit Mode, click inside the WIZIWIG box and hit F11. This will bring that box into Full Screen Mode for ease in editing! WARNING: You must hit F11 again to be able to Save your changes! #F11forlife

(Mort Peyvandi, University of California, Merced - October 24, 2017)

When you have a detail page that is very long, go to Layout Edit and add an additional [[Registration Button]] at the bottom, by either typing in or copy/paste (your mobile users will thank you!) By default there is only one [[Registyration Button]] at the top, but if a user is viewing Homecoming events that can be very detailed and long, they would have to scroll back to the top to register. Make registration as easy as
possible. For our annual golf tournament, MA Kelly Golf Events, we added an extra [[Registration Button]] at the bottom for our users. Link - http://giving.ucmerced.edu/makelley2017.

(Training, Encompass - October 17, 2017)

Before launching your Events to constituents, and after completing all needed test submissions, contact Application Support and ask for all submissions to be purged. This is an all or nothing purge, so make sure you only have test submissions when you make the request.

Forms

(Kevin Hemphill, University of West Georgia - April 18, 2018)

When using any forms in Encompass, by typing the letter "T" in a date and/or time field, it will fill in the current date/time stamp.

(Olivier Gilloux, Dartmouth - December 12, 2017)

When I want to add CSS to a specific step of a form and make sure I remember it's there, I add a new category that I name "Custom CSS" and set it to not display the category header. I add a RichText field and include my CSS in there. This way, my styling is applied on the front end without being visible, and I can see clearly on the back end that there is custom CSS in place and where it is.

(Kate Jolly, Purdue Research Foundation - November 7, 2017)

(Training, Encompass - October 17, 2017)

Before launching your Commerce Forms to constituents, and after completing all needed test submissions, contact Application Support and ask for all submissions to be purged. This is an all or nothing purge, so make sure you only have test submissions when you make the request. Please note that is does not apply to Standard Forms.

(Chase Carter, Oklahoma State University Alumni Association - October 10, 2017)

Forms can be for internal usage too! Create forms for your staff or volunteers to use for purchasing office materials, clothing or making project requests. We have a resource page for our chapter volunteers that links to numerous forms for communication and event requests at http://orangeconnection.org/chapterresources.

General

Sizzler 2018

Couldn't attend Sizzler this year, but still want to stay in the loop? Follow along on Twitter and Instagram with #Sizzler18! Tips, tricks, socks, and BBQ are posted throughout the week! Check out clients.imodules.com/sizzler for more information, access to Spark! videos, and FAQs.

Membership

(Chase Carter, Oklahoma State University Alumni Association - February 20, 2018)

If you're a membership-based organization, you can use the Membership Filter to create automated renewal notices within Email Marketing! First, make sure you use the Custom - Recurring option when you begin creating the email campaign. This will allow you to set it to automatically send every day. When building your query, look for the "Custom Filters" folder and click the "Membership Filter" within it. Then, set how many days before or after the expiration date you want to query for along with the membership levels, status and auto-renewal options. You'll most likely want to use the "exactly" option instead of "between now and." Finally, on the Schedule Email step, set the email to run daily at a certain time. The query will look for any members whose membership expires 30 days from the run day (as an example) and only send the email to them!

(Olivier Gilloux, Dartmouth - December 26, 2017)

If you're like me and don't like how the "Membership Levels" header shows in a membership form, here's
something you can do: - add a Rich Text field with the header you would like to use. - add the following CSS on that step of the form to hide that header. /*Hides the Membership Levels header*/ .idbmsMembershipLevels tr:first-of-typetd { display: none;} Voila.

(Training, Encompass - October 17, 2017)

Before launching your Memberships to constituents, and after completing all needed test submissions, contact Application Support and ask for all submissions to be purged. This is an all or nothing purge, so make sure you only have test submissions when you make the request.

Recurring Payments

(Training, Encompass - November 14, 2017)

Don't forget that you can see all of the scheduled and perpetual gifts and membership auto renewals by hovering over the Gold Key and selecting Recurring Payments. This allows you to manage the credit card on file, see if the next payment will fail, and send On-Demand requests to constituents for updated payment information.

Roles

(Training, Encompass - January 09, 2018)

Need to clean up your role selection list? Go to the Gold Key menu, select Member Field Role Manager, and set any no longer needed roles to inactive.

(Becky Johnson, Purdue Research Foundation - January 02, 2018)

Create test records to see how role and security changes affect the outcome – If you do a lot of role based content, create one or multiple test records to see how it will look to those specific constituents. You can use these test records with data point roles attached to be sure the settings you selected for the roles are correct. If you have certain fields available to only a select group of constituents, you can log in to be sure the fields display or do not display according to your settings. It is much easier to troubleshoot with test records than putting those roles on co-workers records and having them test. We also use these records in our demonstrations/training. For staff that don’t get into the administrative side of the system but view the content or have constituents that view their content through our donor portal, this is our way of showing them how their donors will see the data so it’s more familiar to them if they receive questions.

URL Customizations

(Training, Encompass - November 21, 2017)

>If a submission was made by accessing a form through a link containing an appeal code, not only will that appeal code show in the reporting, but also at the bottom of that submission's admin confirmation email.

Encompass Experts:

Chase Carter	Oklahoma State University Alumni Association
Olivier Gilloux	Dartmouth
Debbi Johanning	KU Alumni Association
Becky Johnson	Purdue Research Foundation
Kate Jolly	Purdue Research Foundation
Lauren Lakomek	Northwestern University
Mort Peyvandi	University of California, Merced
Angelique Felgentreff	Mills College
Kevin Hemphill	University of West Georgia
Cristina Easterbrook	Georgia Tech Alumni Association
Kristen Ziegler	Saint Joseph's University

Admin Rights

Campaign Progress Indicators

Content Editor

Content Management

Data

Donations

Email Marketing

Events

Forms

General

Membership

Recurring Payments

Roles

URL Customizations

Encompass Experts:

Related articles