Anthology Encompass vs. Blackbaud Online Express

Importing and exporting data is failry easy. Automation for e-mail marketing is severely lacking.

Incentivized

For 100% tax-deductible donations, I 9.5/10 recommend Blackbaud Online Express. The only thing is that it does not charge debit cards automatically, so I have to do it myself. Using Blackbaud Online Express forms for events gets more complicated. The way events work in Raiser's Edge in general is already complicated, so maybe it's more on Raiser's Edge than it is Blackbaud Online Express.

Incentivized

• It allows us to create fields as needed.
• Creating an export of data is really easy.
• Merging of records is fairly simple.

Incentivized

• Online donation forms are easy to create and place within our existing website. The donations received are easily transferred into our Raiser's Edge database.
• Creating email communications for our constituents is very simple to achieve in Online Express and the statistics provided are very helpful to see what our constituents are clicking on.

Incentivized

• A more inclusive duplicate identification tool would be great.
• QR tickets for event registrants would be great and move you into this century.
• Allowing more flexibility with event creation is vital to us at this time.
• Additional automation would be great. Email event info, then to those not registered, then a reminder to those registered. Now it is entirely manual throughout the entire process.

Incentivized

• It does have some "quirks." It can be a little tricky to process the batch until you have done it a few times.
• I had a problem finding a constituent yesterday - he was purchasing a program ad for an event - that I knew was in the database. It turned out that he had been marked inactive, and so apparently wasn't included in the search results.

Incentivized

It does not have the automation or event tools that we are desperately needing at this time.

Incentivized

The software is old and complicated. Not very intuitive to learn.

Incentivized

It is usually up and running.

Incentivized

No integration.

Incentivized

I usually get an accurate response to issues. Your service techs are knowledgeable in how the software works and is set up.

Incentivized

Customer service for all of Blackbaud's products has really lacked over the years. They are starting to get better in the last year but it can very frustrating. The online knowledge base community is the best resource for information. At times it can take hours for a customer sect even rep to help with questions or problems which is not at all ideal in this industry.

Incentivized

N/A I've only attended webinar training, which is great when you are on live, not so much when watching a recording.

Incentivized

Most are recorded, so questions that arise are not easy to get answered.

Incentivized

Unknown. I wasn't here.

Incentivized

None others to date.

Incentivized

Blackbaud Online Express is mainly used strictly because of its integration with Raiser's Edge. If a client uses Salesforce for constituent/lead management, other products can offer more flexibility in designing donation forms, email templates, etc. However, they all have their own negatives in Salesforce integration -- that is a whole other can of worms. While the Raiser's Edge integration of Online Express isn't perfect, it is relatively painless compared to the competition's Salesforce integration. Also, for NFP's, Blackbaud's NFP focused business model is a plus.

Incentivized

• The cleanup process is very painful due to lack of any automation
• Identity checkpoint would be great if we could control the fields being matched.

Incentivized

• Regardless of project or initiative, all fund-raising efforts are managed in one place for the entire organization.
• Donor management is concise, thorough, and systematic - no individual or organization is overlooked.
• Snapshot reporting of successful grant applications and fund-raising are readily available.

Incentivized