We have the Membership Update Utility set to run once a month with the previous month's dates set.
Very frequently (and of course without any warning until we stumble upon it) it seems like we wind up with mangled membership statuses. At least in some cases I think that this is because a membership or contribution was backdated to prior to the dates the next Utility run will examine. To fix them I then typically run the Utility manually, ideally over a small enough time period that few other records will be touched: the Membership Update Utility help page is about 90% dire warnings that manually running the report could destroy your database forever, which is disconcerting to say the least, given how often I have to do this.
So here are my questions:
1) What exactly are we worried about the Membership Utility Report mangling? It should just apply the membership rules, right? If a membership is correct it shouldn't do anything, and if it's out of date or has the wrong status or whatever, it should fix it, yes?
2) Is there any reason I shouldn't set that report to run over, say, the last year instead of the last month? As it stands the report never runs over the same period, but surely if it ran over a prior year it would generally pick up these issues where a membership or contribution has been back dated a couple of months or so.
From: "Gawain Lavers" <bounce-gawainlavers9512@tessituranetwork.com>To: bvarro@smm.orgSent: Friday, September 13, 2013 1:07:12 PMSubject: Re: [Tessitura Development Forum] Membership Update UtilityThanks Beth. That sounds like something I'd like to be able to do, even just to cover a year or so in the past that should cover any possible financial backdating likely to occur. Just out of curiosity, I'm guessing as a Museum your memberships are pretty straightforward? Ours are geared pretty exclusively to high-level donors, and as a result the timings and benefits and payments tend to be pretty complex.From: Beth Varro <bounce-elizabethvarro6946@tessituranetwork.com>Sent: 9/13/2013 9:01:11 AMHi Gawain,Wow, I see what you mean about the help page. Obviously I didn't write it, so I can't speak to what concerns the author had. What I can tell you is that here at the Science Museum, we run the utility daily, and we run it from something like 1/1/1950 until the current date. That is specifically to make sure that if there are any odd accounts that somehow got missed, we catch them. The only problem we've ever had is when the report server crashes or hangs up and the report doesn't run. In those cases, having it running through that past date automatically cleans up anything that was missed.I'm not sure what the concern in the help document about segmenting the wrong groups would be, because yes, as I understand it, the utility should just apply the membership organization rules. Not sure how that could be mangled. I'd love to hear if someone from Tessitura can speak to this - if I'm misunderstanding something about this, I should really find out!!Beth* * * * * Visitors of all ages love Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed, the most comprehensive exhibition ever created about the ancient civilization of the Maya. Get a sneak peek inside the exhibition hall and hear what visitors have to say about it: http://www.smm.org/maya/videopreviewElizabeth A VarroMembership ManagerScience Museum of Minnesota(651) 265-9829From: "Gawain Lavers" <bounce-gawainlavers9512@tessituranetwork.com>To: bvarro@smm.orgSent: Thursday, September 12, 2013 4:21:45 PMSubject: [Tessitura Development Forum] Membership Update UtilityWe have the Membership Update Utility set to run once a month with the previous month's dates set.Very frequently (and of course without any warning until we stumble upon it) it seems like we wind up with mangled membership statuses. At least in some cases I think that this is because a membership or contribution was backdated to prior to the dates the next Utility run will examine. To fix them I then typically run the Utility manually, ideally over a small enough time period that few other records will be touched: the Membership Update Utility help page is about 90% dire warnings that manually running the report could destroy your database forever, which is disconcerting to say the least, given how often I have to do this.So here are my questions:1) What exactly are we worried about the Membership Utility Report mangling? It should just apply the membership rules, right? If a membership is correct it shouldn't do anything, and if it's out of date or has the wrong status or whatever, it should fix it, yes?2) Is there any reason I shouldn't set that report to run over, say, the last year instead of the last month? As it stands the report never runs over the same period, but surely if it ran over a prior year it would generally pick up these issues where a membership or contribution has been back dated a couple of months or so. This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Development Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Development forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you! Spam Not spam Forget previous voteThis message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Development Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Development forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you! Spam Not spam Forget previous vote
Thanks Beth. That sounds like something I'd like to be able to do, even just to cover a year or so in the past that should cover any possible financial backdating likely to occur.
Just out of curiosity, I'm guessing as a Museum your memberships are pretty straightforward? Ours are geared pretty exclusively to high-level donors, and as a result the timings and benefits and payments tend to be pretty complex.
From: Beth Varro <bounce-elizabethvarro6946@tessituranetwork.com>Sent: 9/13/2013 9:01:11 AM
From: "Gawain Lavers" <bounce-gawainlavers9512@tessituranetwork.com>To: bvarro@smm.orgSent: Thursday, September 12, 2013 4:21:45 PMSubject: [Tessitura Development Forum] Membership Update UtilityWe have the Membership Update Utility set to run once a month with the previous month's dates set.Very frequently (and of course without any warning until we stumble upon it) it seems like we wind up with mangled membership statuses. At least in some cases I think that this is because a membership or contribution was backdated to prior to the dates the next Utility run will examine. To fix them I then typically run the Utility manually, ideally over a small enough time period that few other records will be touched: the Membership Update Utility help page is about 90% dire warnings that manually running the report could destroy your database forever, which is disconcerting to say the least, given how often I have to do this.So here are my questions:1) What exactly are we worried about the Membership Utility Report mangling? It should just apply the membership rules, right? If a membership is correct it shouldn't do anything, and if it's out of date or has the wrong status or whatever, it should fix it, yes?2) Is there any reason I shouldn't set that report to run over, say, the last year instead of the last month? As it stands the report never runs over the same period, but surely if it ran over a prior year it would generally pick up these issues where a membership or contribution has been back dated a couple of months or so. This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Development Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Development forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you! Spam Not spam Forget previous vote