Export options

[wvp]

Hi everyone;

We are currently running ACT 2012 Pro.  We are a charity that has a large donor database and we are looking at switching software providers to something more capable with respect to contact management.  We are hoping to consolidate our ACT data into the new donor database.  Our ACT database is modestly sized with about 2000 records but contains years of planned and major gift history.

What are my best options to export the data out of ACT and preserve notes, history, etc?

Thanks!

Willard.

[Roy_Laudenslager]

In my opinion you won't find something better at contact management than ACT! 2012. However to do a full export you will need a third party exporter. Here is a link.

http://www.jltechnical.com/exporter.htm

[Edit: syntax correction. no content removed]

[wvp]

Ok, I have my contact data exported.  Tried with export menu option, but that was problematic.  What worked was spending some time getting fields in the proper order in list view and then exporting the list to excel.

Challenges:

History

Attachments

Notes

Groups

Calendar - but not as big a deal as the items above.

I tried the utility linked above, but it generates a whole bunch of flat files.  Not sure how to work with that on the importing side?

[mrogers]

It should be a straightforward effort to access your data for migration to some other system.  You will need to find someone with SQL Server experience to do it.

I do, however, agree with an earlier comment that you will be hard-pressed to find software with the capabilities and flexibility of Act.  But that's just my opinion, for what it's worth.

[wvp]

I'm always quite happy with ACT for what I use it for, but having the data siloed apart from my donor database is becomming a problem.

[mrogers]

That's understandable.  What are the software components for your donor database?

[wvp]

We are leaning towards Blackbaud "Raiser's Edge" at the moment. It's modules will hold most of the data ACT contains and do much of what it does - getting the data in and merging duplicates is the challenge.

[mrogers]

Yes, I am familiar with that, having formerly been employed in higher ed. I believe the db servers for that would be either Oracle or SQL Server, so it should be possible to get to where you want to go.

[Roy_Laudenslager]

With the ability to add custom tables to the ACT! database (does require a plugin for the user interface) you should be able to configure the ACT! database to include the doner information. If you're interested give me a call to discuss further.

[Roy_Laudenslager]

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Challenges:

History

Attachments

Notes

Groups

Calendar - but not as big a deal as the items above.

I tried the utility linked above, but it generates a whole bunch of flat files.  Not sure how to work with that on the importing side?

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Each of the items you listed is stored in separate tables (flat files) the ACT! database and linked to the contact table. The export utility give you several database compatible structures it will export to. The database you want to use should have an import option for at least one of the export structures. I'm assuming that you likely chose the text option as an export target.