Getting Started 103: Features

Take a high level overview of the features included in DonorSnap. Learn about mass emails, online donations and registrations, mass data entry, reporting, and other features you may not be using yet. This session is a “did you know?” tour of the tools built into every DonorSnap subscription: personalizing your dashboard and menus, communicating with supporters by text and email, printing mailing labels, tracking what you’ve sent, integrating with QuickBooks and other services, and cleaning your addresses through the post office for free.

In this webinar we cover:

• Customizing your dashboard with the Add App button and choosing a color theme
• Controlling which menus and features each user sees under Maintenance > User Setup
• Sending text messages through the Twilio integration
• Printing mailing labels, name badges, and shipping labels from Processing > Documents
• Mass Email Campaigns and the free monthly email allowance
• Automated emails with the Automated Task Manager (birthdays, membership renewals, welcome series, lapsed donors)
• Recording outside mailings with Interaction Mass Update
• QuickBooks, Constant Contact, DonorSearch, and Stripe integrations
• The Duplicate and Move buttons on donations, plus the free annual NCOA address cleaning

For the reports, online donation forms, and thank-you letters that are only mentioned in passing here, see Getting Started 106: Reports, Getting Started 107: Forms, and Getting Started 104: Acknowledgement Letters.

Quick recap

The trainer opened by setting aside the big topics that have their own webinars (reports, online donations, and thank-you letters) and then toured DonorSnap’s other features in a “did you know?” format. She started with the user experience: building a personal dashboard with the Add App button, changing the color theme, and restricting each user’s menus and data access through Maintenance > User Setup. From there she moved into the Processing menu, covering Text Messaging Campaigns through Twilio, mailing labels under Documents, Mass Email Campaigns and the free email allowance, the Automated Task Manager for scheduled emails, and Interaction Mass Update for logging outside mailings. She then reviewed the QuickBooks integration and the full list of integrations under Maintenance > Site Setup, demonstrated the Duplicate and Move buttons on donation records, pointed to the Mass Entry tool, and closed by urging everyone to request their free annual NCOA address cleaning before end-of-year mailings go out.

Summary

Customizing Your Dashboard
Every user in your organization can have their own dashboard, because an executive director and the person who prints thank-you letters need to see different things when they log in. The trainer used the Acknowledgements Pending app as her example: it shows how many thank-you letters are waiting to be printed or emailed, and only the people who send those letters need it on their screen. To add any app, click the Add App button on the right side of the dashboard, pick the app from the list, choose a color, and place it where you want it. Existing apps can be dragged around the page. Hover over the top right corner of an app to reveal three buttons: the gear opens its settings (including color), the minimize button shrinks it, and the X removes it. Deleting an app is not a problem, since you can add it right back with Add App.

Changing Your Color Theme
The tab colors and screen layout in DonorSnap are a per-user preference, and the program ships with gray tabs. To change yours, click your user name in the blue bar at the top right of the screen and choose a theme from the list. The trainer uses the theme called Material, which turns the tabs green and, in her experience, makes them easier to spot while training. She also previewed Glow (dark), Sunset (sand-colored tabs that turn orange in the grid view), and Windows 7, and noted that many of the themes lean blue. Changing your theme affects only your own login. It does not alter any data or anyone else’s view, so it is safe to experiment until you find one you like.

Controlling Menus and Rights Per User
Each user’s menus on the left side of the screen are determined by their security settings. The trainer described three reasons to trim them. First, a new assistant who is intimidated by a long menu list can be limited to the four or five things their job requires, such as Community > Contacts, one or two reports, and thank-you letters under Processing. Second, security: if board members should see addresses but not donations, you can remove their access. Third, some features are hidden until a user is granted access to them. To adjust rights, go to Maintenance > User Setup, click the user, open the Rights tab, and click Edit. Uncheck menu items the user doesn’t need. On the right side of the same screen, you can set data-level access; giving a user No Access to Donations also prevents them from running any donation-related reports, removing that ability in one step.

Turning On Texting, the Automated Task Manager, and Image Manager
When DonorSnap adds a new feature, it is not automatically visible to existing users. The trainer used Text Messaging Campaign, added to the bottom of the Processing menu a few years ago, as the example. If it isn’t in your menu, go to Maintenance > User Setup, find yourself in the list (or ask someone in your office who has access to User Setup), open the Rights tab, click Edit, and check Text Messaging under the Processing section. She pointed out that three features usually travel together: if you don’t see Text Messaging Campaign, you probably also don’t see the Automated Task Manager under Processing or the Image Manager under Maintenance, and all three can be turned on the same way. The trainer noted that nearly everything covered in this session lives under the Processing menu, which holds DonorSnap’s communication tools.

Sending Text Messages Through Twilio
DonorSnap texts through a third-party company called Twilio. You set up a Twilio account, Twilio assigns you a phone number so you are not texting from a personal cell phone, and then you log into DonorSnap to write and send your messages under Processing > Text Messaging Campaign. For example, you could text all 300 of your volunteers at once. Any replies come back into DonorSnap and are stored on the contact’s record under the Text tab, all the way to the right in Community > Contacts, where you can continue a one-on-one conversation with that person. Twilio is not free, but it offers a starting credit, and after that texts cost about a penny each, so the credit covers a great deal of texting. For setup instructions, open Help from the blue bar at the top, search for “text,” and choose the page titled Text Messaging Setup (Twilio).

Printing Mailing Labels
Labels are generated under Processing > Documents > Labels and Text Letters. Sample label documents are already built in, so start with the one called Address Labels, which is based on a DataMiner Platinum batch. Click the pencil icon to edit the document, choose the DataMiner Platinum list to use (the trainer picked a list of all active contacts), and click Update. On the tabs across the top, the Create Document tab is where you lay out the label by pulling in fields such as the acknowledgement address, city, state, and zip. The Review Data tab lists every contact in the selected list, and you can uncheck anyone you want to skip. Generate PDF produces the labels, ready for the printer. DonorSnap includes three label sizes; hover over the size at the bottom of the Create Document tab to see the exact Avery number. Address Labels correspond to Avery 5160, the standard “mailing labels” box, plus there is a name badge at 2 1/3 inches and a larger shipping label.

Building Lists in DataMiner Platinum First
Labels, texting, and email all begin with a list built in DataMiner Platinum, DonorSnap’s custom report builder. The trainer’s demo site had lists ready to go for the board, everyone in an after-school program, contacts without an email address, and more. Because those lists were created ahead of time, they were available in the dropdown when she went to make labels, and the same lists appear when you create a text campaign or a mass email. DataMiner Platinum has its own set of videos and webinars, so it was not covered here, but the takeaway is to set up your lists in advance so every communication tool can pull from them. See the DataMiner Platinum Basics webinar to learn how.

Mass Email Campaigns
DonorSnap sends several kinds of email: thank-you letters, end-of-year contribution statements with a donation summary and your tax ID, and general emails such as newsletters, appeals, or event reminders. The last group is handled by Processing > Mass Email Campaign. The trainer opened her golf tournament invitation to show that the email is built entirely inside DonorSnap. You do not design it in Canva or Publisher and attach a file; there are no attachments. The editor looks and works like a Word document, with buttons to insert an image or table, change fonts, bold text, and set alignment. Her sample included a logo, a mail merge salutation that personalizes each greeting, and a link to an online form where recipients can pay. Enter your own email address and name at the top so replies come to you. She summed it up this way: if you can create a Word document, you can create an email in DonorSnap.

How Many Emails You Can Send for Free
Email sending is included in your subscription at no extra charge. Your allowance is based on the contact tier you pay for (up to 1,000, 5,000, or 10,000 contacts, for example) multiplied by two. A subscription for up to 5,000 contacts therefore includes 10,000 emails per month, and the allowance resets every month. If you are not sure which tier you signed up for, email support and they will tell you. If you ever need more than your monthly allowance, you can contact DonorSnap to purchase additional emails.

Automated Emails with the Automated Task Manager
The Automated Task Manager (ATM), at the bottom of the Processing menu, sends emails on a schedule without anyone clicking send. Once a task is turned on, it runs every morning, finds the contacts who meet the criteria that day, and emails them automatically. The trainer walked through several examples from her demo site: a happy birthday email; a membership expiration series that emails 45 days before a membership expires, again 10 days before if the member has not renewed, and again 30 days after; a new donor welcome that sends your organization’s history the day after a contact is added and the executive director’s bio seven days later; and a lapsed donor campaign that emails 366 days after a contact’s last donation. Each email uses the same Word-style editor as Mass Email Campaign and can include your logo, mail merge fields such as membership type, and a link to a payment form. After a task is running, the ATM shows how many emails are queued for the next batch.

Tracking Communications with Interaction Mass Update
When you send a Mass Email Campaign, DonorSnap asks whether to save it to each contact’s record, either as an interaction (recording the date and subject line) or as a note (saving the full email). The trainer opened a sample contact’s Interaction tab to show the history of mailings and emails logged there automatically. For things you do outside DonorSnap, use Processing > Interaction Mass Update. Her example was a holiday mailer: she built a DataMiner Platinum list of contacts without an email address, exported it to Excel, and made labels in Word because she needed a size DonorSnap doesn’t offer. Back in DonorSnap, she created a manual update that gave all 166 contacts on that list an interaction record showing the date and the name of the mailing. The same approach works if you send email through an outside service such as Emma or Mailchimp.

QuickBooks Integration
DonorSnap is integrated with both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online. Under Processing > QuickBooks, you add a batch, such as every donation dated on or after a certain day, and push it to QuickBooks. Anything that lands in DonorSnap can be sent, whether it was typed in by hand or downloaded from Stripe. The integration is one-directional: it goes from DonorSnap to QuickBooks and never pulls data back. Because every organization’s books are different (some want every check, some want only totals that match the deposit, some want both), there is setup work to do first. The trainer directed everyone to the help site: the QuickBooks Desktop Integration Setup Guide describes two levels of integration, and the QuickBooks Online Integration Setup Guide describes four. Read the guide for your version before deciding which level fits your accounting.

The Five DonorSnap Integrations
Maintenance > Site Setup > Integrations is the screen where every connection is configured. Payment processing is where you set up Stripe for online donations. QuickBooks holds the accounting connection described above. Constant Contact lets DonorSnap push email addresses directly to your Constant Contact account, though you still pay for Constant Contact and build and send the email there; for any other email service such as Emma or Mailchimp, you export a DataMiner Platinum report to Excel and import it. Twilio is where you enter your Twilio account and phone number for texting. DonorSearch is a wealth screening service that reviews your contacts against public records (property, donations to other organizations, and so on) to estimate who is likely to make a substantial gift; a short video on the Integrations tab explains it, and the integration is available if you purchase a DonorSearch account.

Duplicating and Moving Donations
Recurring donors who mail the same check every month still have to be entered each time, but the Duplicate button makes it quick. Open the contact in Community > Contacts, go to the Donations tab, find the most recent matching payment, and click Duplicate on the far right. DonorSnap copies everything from the earlier entry, changes the date to today, and you click Save. The Move button, in the same spot, fixes a donation entered on the wrong contact: find the payment, click Move, pull up the contact it belongs to, and click Move again to transfer it. For organizations that receive a lot of checks, the trainer also recommended the Mass Entry tool, where you set up a donation page in advance and then enter check after check by pulling up a contact, typing the amount, and clicking Add. See Getting Started 108: Mass Entry for a full session on it.

Free Annual NCOA Address Cleaning
The trainer’s closing advice was that if you do nothing else after the webinar, request a National Change of Address (NCOA) cleaning. It is not a feature you run yourself; it is a service included with your subscription, and you get one free cleaning per year. Go to Help > Contact Support in the blue bar at the top and email support asking them to send your database through the post office cleaning. Support submits your addresses to the NCOA database, reformats street addresses to USPS standards, adds the extra four digits to zip codes, and flags contacts who have moved. When it is finished, support sends you the NCOA Service help page, which explains the results and lists any records that need manual review. With end-of-year mailings approaching, she recommended doing this right away.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why don’t I see Text Messaging Campaign or Automated Task Manager in my menu? Those features are turned off for your user. Go to Maintenance > User Setup, click your name, open the Rights tab, click Edit, and check Text Messaging and Automated Task Manager under the Processing section. Image Manager, under Maintenance, is usually hidden for the same reason. If you don’t have access to User Setup, ask someone in your office who does.

Can every user have a different dashboard and color theme in DonorSnap? Yes. Dashboards and themes are set per user, so each person in your office can arrange their own apps and pick their own colors without affecting anyone else. Use the Add App button on the dashboard to add apps, and click your user name in the top right blue bar to change your theme. The trainer recommends the Material theme, which turns the tabs green.

How do I hide menus or restrict data for a specific user? Go to Maintenance > User Setup, select the user, open the Rights tab, and click Edit. Uncheck any menu items they don’t need. On the right side of the screen, set data access; for example, giving a user No Access to Donations also blocks them from running donation reports. This is useful both for simplifying the screen for new staff and for limiting what board members can see.

Does it cost extra to send text messages from DonorSnap? The DonorSnap texting feature is included in your subscription, but it requires a separate account with Twilio, which is not free. Twilio provides a starting credit and then charges about a penny per text, so the credit covers a large volume of messages. Setup instructions are on the Text Messaging Setup (Twilio) help page.

How many emails can I send from DonorSnap for free? Twice your contact subscription tier per month. If you pay for up to 5,000 contacts, you get 10,000 emails per month, and the allowance resets each month. Mass Email Campaigns, thank-you letter emails, and contribution statement emails are all included. If you need more, contact DonorSnap to purchase additional emails, and email support if you are unsure which tier you have.

What label sizes can DonorSnap print? Three: standard address labels (Avery 5160, the size sold as “mailing labels”), a 2 1/3-inch name badge, and a larger shipping label. Hover over the size selector at the bottom of the Create Document tab under Processing > Documents > Labels and Text Letters to see the exact Avery number. If you need a different size, export a DataMiner Platinum report to Excel and create the labels in Word.

Do I need a DataMiner Platinum list before I can send labels, texts, or emails? Yes. Labels, Text Messaging Campaigns, and Mass Email Campaigns all select their recipients from a list built in DataMiner Platinum. Build your lists ahead of time (for example, board members, event attendees, or contacts without an email address) and they will appear in the dropdown whenever you create a document, text, or email.

What does DonorSnap integrate with? Stripe for online payment processing, QuickBooks (Desktop and Online), Constant Contact, Twilio for texting, and DonorSearch for wealth screening. All are configured under Maintenance > Site Setup > Integrations. DonorSnap is not integrated with any other products; for other email services such as Mailchimp or Emma, export a DataMiner Platinum report to Excel and import it there.

Does the QuickBooks integration go both ways? No. Donations flow from DonorSnap to QuickBooks only; DonorSnap never pulls data from QuickBooks. Both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online are supported, with two integration levels for Desktop and four for Online. Read the setup guide for your version on the help site to choose the level that matches how your organization keeps its books.

How do I enter a recurring donor’s monthly check without retyping it? Use the Duplicate button. Open the contact in Community > Contacts, go to the Donations tab, find the previous payment, and click Duplicate on the far right. DonorSnap copies the earlier entry and changes the date to today; click Save. Each payment still has to be entered, but duplicating makes it a few clicks. For large stacks of checks, the Mass Entry tool is faster.

I entered a donation on the wrong contact. How do I fix it? Use the Move button on the donation. Open the contact where the donation was entered by mistake, find the payment on the Donations tab, click Move, pull up the correct contact, and click Move again. The donation transfers to the right record without being re-entered.

How do I get my addresses cleaned through the National Change of Address database? Email DonorSnap support and ask for your free NCOA cleaning; use Help > Contact Support in the blue bar at the top of DonorSnap. Every subscription includes one free cleaning per year. Support runs your database through the post office’s NCOA database, standardizes street addresses, adds zip+4, and identifies contacts who have moved, then sends you a help page explaining the results and any records that need manual review. Do this before your end-of-year mailings.

Related Pages:

Getting Started 101: Introduction
Getting Started 102: Setup
Getting Started 104: Acknowledgement Letters
Getting Started 105: Searching
Getting Started 106: Reports
Getting Started 107: Forms
Getting Started 108: Mass Entry
DataMiner Platinum Basics webinar
Text Messaging Setup (Twilio)
Text Messaging Campaigns
QuickBooks Desktop Integration Setup Guide
QuickBooks Online Integration Setup Guide
NCOA Service (National Change of Address)