This area allows you to import Donations into TicketSearch from a previous system or from another external source. On import, TicketSearch creates a transaction and the donations will be viewable against a customer’s record in the customer account donation summary and in reports.
How does it work?
Once you’ve clicked into ‘Customer Database Import’ and selected ‘Donation Import’, you will be presented with your list of donation campaigns to assign the data import to.
Important Rules
You must first ensure that all of your customers are uploaded in the first tab, ‘Customer Data Import’, before attempting to import donations. The system requires the unique customer id to then match the donation to a relevant customer.
Against your campaign(s) that you are importing donations, you must select ‘Yes’ to ‘Allow customer to enter fundraising amount’. Even if you have entered a minimum fundraising amount, your import will ignore this minimum value.
Step 1: Select the ‘Donation’ that you would like import. You can import donations against one campaign at a time. Then click ‘Download CSV File’.
Step 2: Download the CSV, open the spreadsheet, leave all columns and heading names intact and copy your data across from your previous system or anywhere else where you are importing the data from.
The following fields are represented in the spreadsheet:
- Customer ID: The customer id that was previously imported into the system and is the unique identifier to ensure that the donation is matched to the correct customer on import.
- Campaign name e.g. Cancer Council: This is the name of the campaign. It is not mandatory to enter anything into this field.
- Custom amount: This is the amount of the donation.
For Donor Levels – Enter a Y against the donor level type, e.g. Gold, Silver, Diamond that you have created previously.
If your donation campaign contains both donation values and Donor Levels, simply add a line for each transaction. Your donor level may have an expiry date. Enter it in the field provided. If not, the expiry date will default to the expiry date against the donor level.
What is a donor level?
Create certain types of donation levels, that when selected, will create a particular status for your customer based on their donation. For example, you could allocate the ‘Platinum’ status to a $1000 donation, ‘Gold’ to $500 and so on. Customers who donate these values can then access discounted ticket prices (ticket types can be restricted to donor levels) or other benefits.
- Confirmation Number: This is the confirmation number from your previous or external system. When searching for a confirmation number for a donation on TicketSearch, you will be able to enter this number and the system will reference it against the transaction. This is particularly useful if the customer contacts you will a query about their donation. If you don’t enter a confirmation number, we’ll generate a new one for you on import.
- Transaction Date: Enter the transaction date of the donation as dd/mm/yyyy. Dates in the past are accepted e.g. 12/04/2015.
- Anonymous Funding: Found under Fundraising settings,enter Y or N to represent if the customer who made the donation wants to remain anonymous. Further details of Anonymous Fundraising are below.
- Acknowledgement Name: Enter the acknowledgement names against the donation for any future reference. This setting is available under Fundraising Settings. See further information about this below.
Below: screenshots from downloaded CSV file
Step 3: Select a File to Upload
Once you have entered all of the relevant information into the spreadsheet, you then choose ‘Select A File To Upload’ on the donation import page and upload it. Please ensure that you do not exceed more than 200 records to be uploaded at a time.
You will be presented with the subsequent page where you need to action the following:
- Select a sales channel to assign: Select a sales channel such as walk-up, telephone, internet or a manually created sales channel. Only one sales channel can be assigned per upload. If you are wanting to maintain the original order purchase channel, you can simply import the donations in multiple uploads selecting the correct sales channel.
- Select Payment Method: Select a payment type to record the transactions in the system. You may also decide to create a custom payment type to easily identify these transactions in reports.
Tip: As your data is loading, this process can take up to 5 minutes. Please do not close the page or take any actions on the page. You will see the below message, ‘Please wait while we upload your data’.
If there is an error what should I do?
With any error, you will get the following message if the data has been manipulated and doesn’t correctly represent the headings that were downloaded. For example, you moved column 1 to column 3.
There has been an error while importing your data. Please ensure your data is in the correct format and try again.
Simply review the original spreadsheet to ensure that the headings are maintained. If there are other errors, such as date formats that are incorrect, the system will import the correct data and provide you with a successful message.
Step 4: Upload History
Failed and completed transactions are listed in the upload history table. The date/time/user who uploaded the data is also recorded. If any records have failed to upload, you can click on the error message which may say “1 error(s)”, download the CSV, correct the errors and re-upload the data.
Above: The date format was incorrect. The system states ‘Invalid Transaction Date format has passed;’.
Key tips once data is uploaded
- The customer record will have the donation total updated to represent the imported donation value and when the last donation was made.
- Transaction Update
When searching for a transaction that has been imported with a previous confirmation number, TicketSearch will reference the imported confirmation number with an i info tip to remind any staff what the imported reference refers to.
- Reports
The Fundraising/Donations report is your key report to show any donations. It’s important to note that if you enter a transaction date in the past, the imported transaction will be found against that date e.g. 10 March 2015.
