My museum has been trying to figure out a way to get our volunteer hours into Tessitura for close to a year (since we went live July 2022). Everyone on the forums keeps saying we need to build a custom screen. A few really great institutions even sent me a zip drive of their SQL files and showed me how to use SQL/SSMS.
The problem is I am so new at this that the little they showed me wasn't enough, and also when I did try to input the SQL files into SSMS, one row had an error message and it's been a pain in the butt to deal with. Another thing is, this set of files needed InfoMaker to complete the process (the PBL file needed to be uploaded there). My institution does not have that, and when I asked via Ticket for it, Tessitura told me no because they are in the process of phasing out InfoMaker.
We are also still running on version 15 and I don't know when we will make the switch to version 16. Also, my institution does not want to spend the money to have the custom screen built, which is why I'm taking the time to try and learn to do it myself.
With all of this in mind, is there something somewhere that will give me a step-by-step as if I'm an idiot (kind of the way Tessitura does when you're first building out the system).
We have a goal of starting to input volunteer hours into Tessitura by July 1 (start of fiscal year and our 1 year anniversary of having Tessitura). If someone could point me in a direction, or maybe if there is a better way of inputting this data, I'd appreciate it.
We had a custom screen built for just this right before the shutdown in 2020, knowing that it would have to be updated come v16 because of the move away from InfoMaker. And since we've reopened we have discontinued our volunteer program that it was built for. But it does everything you're looking for, with a custom report. I googled InfoMaker and they have a free 30-day trial that you can download. Would that get you through the setup? I haven't used it this way, so I'm not sure. Have you shared your error message with those who sent you their code? (I am guessing so, but just wanted to see if anyone can help pinpoint the problem).
AnneThe Historic New Orleans Collection
Yes I have shared it with both John and Katie (can't remember which institutions they are from but they were really nice and helpful). Neither one of them know why that error keeps coming up for this one particular line on the first file.
I can send you the zip file that Katie sent me, just to make sure what you have and what she had is different or not (maybe that error won't happen on yours).
I will also look into the InfoMaker trial. The issue with that is, once InfoMaker does go away, will anything built with it deactivate as well? Meaning will I have to redo all of this all over again once InfoMaker disappears?
Chelsea, I would recommend looking at building a web-based custom screen, rather than InfoMaker. Using a web-based custom screen means that your custom screen will integrate with Tessitura via the REST API, and use technology that is future compatible with v16, and will not need to be completely rewritten. Depending on how you track your volunteers, you may need a local procedure or two to support the screen, but if you use standard functionality like constituencies, you may be able to build the screen using standard API methods.
If you need help getting started with a web-based custom screen to do this, we can assist! These custom screens can be build by you, an ecosystem web developer partner, or by our consulting team.
Documentation on building web-based custom tabs:
Tessitura_Custom_Screens_v150.pdfFor v15 - see section on "Browser-Based Custom Screen Guidelines " in the above document.
For volunteer management, you'll likely want a custom screen either on the constituent record, or one the Tools menu level.
Setting up a custom tab: https://www.tessituranetwork.com/Help_System_v151h/Tessitura.htm#System_Tables/TR_CUSTOM_TAB.htm?Highlight=TR_Custom_Tab
Doing a web-based custom screen / tab is the most future-proof way to build this functionality.
Thanks,
Chris Szalaj
This would be great. However, is there a cost associated with this if I have someone help me build it? This goes back to my original problem where I need to build it myself because my institution does not have the budget currently to have Tessitura build it for us; but I do not know the back end of the system well enough to build it myself without someone walking me through it step-by-step (as if I'm an idiot).
Hi Chelsea, While I am not remotely an expert on this topic, I have posted a community-wide invitation to build this as an open-source project here.
I just replied on the invite. Once the code is up and going, NBMAA would be more than happy to do the testing and also write up some user guides for it (since that is my job anyway).