Skills Labs Prerequisites: Blackbaud Developers' Conference 2021

SKILLS LAB: Power BI and Blackbaud CRM™

SKILLS LAB: Creating a Luminate Online donation form with REST APIs

PREREQUISITES

Create a TEST donation campaign and donation form in Luminate Online.

On the donation form, you should include the fields: Standard Donation Level, Billing First Name, Billing Last Name, Billing Street 1, Billing Street 2, Billing City, Billing State/Province, Billing ZIP/Postal Code, Billing Country, Email Address, Communication Opt-in, and Payment Type.
On the Standard Donation Level, check the checkbox for "Yes, allow optional recurring behavior", set Fixed Frequency to Monthly, and set Duration to Forever.

Take note of your API Key found under Setup -> Site Options -> Open API Configuration.

Make note and have handy your Luminate Online FTP credentials, including hostname, username, and password. If you don't have your credentials, contact Blackbaud Support

SKILLS LAB: Building a Power BI Dashboard Embedded in Financial Edge NXT®

PREREQUISITES

This session will be using the Microsoft Power Platform and assumes that all attendees will have appropriate privileges to create data visualizations in Power BI and make Apps on Power Apps. Please visit both these sites right now and click on “Create” in the left sidebar navigation. If you are prompted to upgrade, then you do not have access and will need to contact your IT administrator as soon as possible to ensure you have access to a paid account or free trial in advance of June 17th.

In this Skills Lab, we will be creating a Power BI dashboard for a Project Record, embedding the dashboard into a Power App, and then embedding the Power App on the Project Record in Financial Edge NXT.

To successfully participate in the Skills Lab, please ensure you have completed the following steps:

Create a SKY Developer account if you do not already have one. This account represents you as a developer within the Blackbaud Developer Portal.
Visit GitHub and complete the Read-me instructions for Installation of the Power BI Connector for Financial Edge NXT. We will review this step quickly at the beginning of the Skills Lab if you get stuck.
Ensure you have access to Control Panel -> Applications within Financial Edge NXT.
Review the SKY Add-in documentation.

SKILLS LAB: Embedding a Power App to Launch a Workflow in Raiser's Edge NXT®—Ben Lambert

PREREQUISITES

This session will be using the Microsoft Power Platform and assumes that all attendees will have appropriate privileges to create workflows on Power Automate and make apps on Power Apps. Please visit both these sites right now and click on “Create” in the left sidebar navigation. If you are prompted to upgrade, then you do not have access and will need to contact your IT administrator as soon as possible to ensure you have access to a paid account or free trial in advance of June 17th.

In this Skills Lab, we will be creating a Power App to launch a workflow on Power Automate to deliver a quick Outlook or Gmail email to registered event participants.

To successfully participate in the Skills Lab, please ensure you have completed the following steps:

Create a SKY Developer account if you do not already have one. This account represents you as a developer within the Blackbaud Developer Portal.
Link your Raiser’s Edge NXT instance to the Microsoft Power Platform by completing these initial set-up steps. If you have a TEST Environment, we suggest you make use of this for the Skills Lab. If you do not have access to Control Panel to complete these steps, you will need to ask for permission from your Raiser’s Edge NXT administrator.
Create a TEST Event in Raiser’s Edge NXT webview with at least 2 seeded TEST participants registered– it is ideal if you use an email address you have access to as the contact email for these participants.
Review the SKY Add-in documentation.

SKILLS LAB: Building a Gift Digest Notification using Power Automate—Jim Ballou

PREREQUISITES

This session will be using the Microsoft Power Platform and assumes that all attendees will have appropriate privileges to create a workflow at flow.microsoft.com. Please visit this site right now and click on “Create” in the left sidebar navigation. If you are prompted to upgrade, then you do not have access and will need to contact your IT administrator as soon as possible to ensure you have access to a paid account or free trial in advance of June 17th.

In this Skills Lab, we will be creating an email notification with a digest of the previous day’s large gifts. Before the Skills Lab you will need to:

Create a SKY Developer account if you do not already have one. This account represents you as a developer within the Blackbaud Developer Portal.
Link your Raiser’s Edge NXT instance to the Microsoft Power Platform by completing these initial set-up steps. If you have a TEST Environment, we suggest you make use of this for the Skills Lab. If you do not have access to Control Panel to complete these steps, you will need to ask for permission from your Raiser’s Edge NXT administrator.
Create a Raiser’s Edge NXT webview Gift List of all single donations over $1,000 with a Gift Date Range of ‘Yesterday’. If you will not have any gifts that meet these criteria on June 17th, then we suggest that you create at least 2 Test Gifts to work with during the Skills Lab.

SKILLS LAB: Building a Gift Digest Notification using Power Automate—Trevor Kelly

PREREQUISITES

In this Skills Lab, we will be creating an email notification with a digest of the previous day’s large gifts. Before the Skills Lab you will need to:

Create a SKY Developer account if you do not already have one. This account represents you as a developer within the Blackbaud Developer Portal.
Link your Raiser’s Edge NXT instance to the Microsoft Power Platform by completing these initial set-up steps. If you have a TEST Environment, we suggest you make use of this for the Skills Lab. If you do not have access to Control Panel to complete these steps, you will need to ask for permission from your Raiser’s Edge NXT administrator.
Create a Raiser’s Edge NXT webview Gift List of all single donations over $1,000 with a Gift Date Range of ‘Yesterday’. If you will not have any gifts that meet these criteria on June 17th, then we suggest that you create at least 2 Test Gifts to work with during the Skills Lab.

SKILLS LAB: Leveraging Layered S-tags to Personalize Web Experiences

PREREQUISITES

In this Skills Lab we cover many scenarios that require S-tags (session component tags) to improve and enrich your supporter experiences. S-Tags allow you to insert and render content specific to the user and can be truly powerful in personalizing web content.
For example, S-Tags can:

Personalize content for a logged-in user with information such as first name, last name, rewards point balance, or donation history.
Tag conditional content for a logged-in user with information such as "is a member/is not a member"," is an advocate/is not an advocate", or "is a donor/is not a donor."
Render an action alert, survey, donation thermometer, or reusable page content. This content is also dynamic. For example, the donation thermometer automatically adjusts as the donation amount changes.
Some tags return simple strings, but most call component APIs in applications and return blocks of HTML.

Please confirm you can complete the following steps prior to joining the Skills Lab on June 17th:

Please review the S-tag documentation and Quick Reference Guide.
Ensure you have administrator access to your organization’s Luminate Online instance with permissions to create and edit PageBuilder pages and page wrappers
Download a code editor on your computer such as Visual Studio Code, Atom, or Sublime

SKILLS LAB: Embedding a Power App to Launch a Workflow in Raiser's Edge NXT®—Ben Lambert

PREREQUISITES

In this Skills Lab, we will be creating a Power App to launch a workflow on Power Automate to deliver a quick Outlook or Gmail email to registered event participants.

To successfully participate in the Skills Lab, please ensure you have completed the following steps:

Create a SKY Developer account if you do not already have one. This account represents you as a developer within the Blackbaud Developer Portal.
Link your Raiser’s Edge NXT instance to the Microsoft Power Platform by completing these initial set-up steps. If you have a TEST Environment, we suggest you make use of this for the Skills Lab. If you do not have access to Control Panel to complete these steps, you will need to ask for permission from your Raiser’s Edge NXT administrator.
Create a TEST Event in Raiser’s Edge NXT webview with at least 2 seeded TEST participants registered– it is ideal if you use an email address you have access to as the contact email for these participants.
Review the SKY Add-in documentation.

SKILLS LAB: Embedding a Power App to Launch a Workflow in Raiser's Edge NXT®—Jim Ballou

PREREQUISITES

In this Skills Lab, we will be creating a Power App to launch a workflow on Power Automate for common donor service requests and then embedding that in a SKY Add-in tile in Raiser’s Edge NXT. This is a common scenario when:

You have users who do not have admin rights to make changes to biographical information in Raiser’s Edge NXT;
You want additional control over required fields and downstream workflows; or
You want to approve data change requests and have an audit trail on updates.

To successfully participate in the Skills Lab, please ensure you have completed the following steps:

Create a SKY Developer account if you do not already have one. This account represents you as a developer within the Blackbaud Developer Portal.
Link your Raiser’s Edge NXT instance to the Microsoft Power Platform by completing these initial set-up steps. If you have a TEST Environment, we suggest you make use of this for the Skills Lab. If you do not have access to Control Panel to complete these steps, you will need to ask for permission from your Raiser’s Edge NXT administrator.
Document and have handy your own business rules for updating mailing address or email addresses on constituent records.
Review the SKY Add-in documentation.

SKILLS LAB: Creating a Custom Connector on the Microsoft Power Platform

PREREQUISITES

This session will be using the Microsoft Power Platform and assumes that all attendees will have appropriate privileges to create a custom connector from flow.microsoft.com or make.powerapps.com and that you have already completed the Initial Set-up to connect your Raiser’s Edge NXT instance.

Please confirm your access now by going to Data > Custom Connectors, and you should see an option in the upper right to add a New Custom Connector. If you do not know if you have access to the create workflows, apps or custom connectors, then please contact your IT administrator as soon as possible to ensure you have access to a paid account or free trial in advance of June 17th.

In this Skills Lab, we will be connecting JustGiving to the Microsoft Power Platform. JustGiving is a free (transaction fees apply) peer-to-peer platform that Blackbaud acquired in 2017. Customers have expressed interest in automating some of the tasks associated with P2P campaigns, such as:

Automatically creating a fundraising page when a constituent registers for an event
Setting up reminders and notifications at various points within the campaign
Ensuring fundraiser and gift data is being properly integrated across multiple systems

In order to build the custom connector for JustGiving, please ensure you’ve completed the following:

Create a JustGiving Developer account.
If a default application has not been created for you, create one.
Request a secret for your application by emailing developer@justgiving.com and provide your AppID
Take some time to review the documentation
Ensure you have a login to your charity’s account (this is separate from your developer account).
If you need help with your account, please visit our help resources.
- If your charity has yet to join JustGiving, sign up here.
Be sure you have the Postman files handy on the day of the day of the Skills Lab.

SKILLS LAB: Common workflows leveraging Power Platform with Financial Edge NXT®

PREREQUISITES

This session will be using the Microsoft Power Platform and assumes that all attendees will have appropriate privileges to create a workflow in Power Automate and to create a new custom connector. You can confirm access by:

Visiting flow.microsoft.com now and clicking on “Create” in the left sidebar navigation. If you are prompted to upgrade, then you do not have rights.
Clicking on Data -> Custom Connectors. You should see an option in the upper-right to add a New Custom Connector. If you do not see this option, then you do not have rights.

Please contact your IT administrator as soon as possible to ensure you have access to a paid account or free trial with these rights enabled in advance of June 17th.

In this Skills Lab, we will be creating a journal entry transaction and vendor/invoice approval workflow. Please complete the following steps prior to the Skills Lab:

Create a SKY Developer account if you do not already have one. This account represents you as a developer within the Blackbaud Developer Portal.
Download the Financial NXT custom connector for Microsoft Power Automate from GitHub. Then, visit Power Automate and click Data -> Custom Connectors, Choose to add a "New Custom Connector", Select “Import an Open API File”. We will go over this part of the process very quickly in the Skills Lab.
Document and have handy your organization’s business rules for approvals on new journal entry transaction and vendor/invoice approvals.