Every time you need to look up someone on your database, you would normally need to open your web browser, go to your alumni website, log in if you aren't already, and use the quick search bar on your homepage to look somebody up. If you have to do this often, we have a few things you could do to make this a whole lot easier.
Every time you need to look up someone on your database, you would normally need to open your web browser, go to your alumni website, log in if you aren't already and use the quick search bar on your homepage to look somebody up. If you have to do this often, we have a few things you could do to make this a whole lot easier.
The search address is the URL that you see on the search page on your website. It should look something like 'http://alumni.regencyuniversity.org/search?q=' . This search address can be used on different apps (listed below) to jump you straight into your search page.
Now that you have your search address prepared, let's jump into some ways you can quickly run a search query through your database.
Alfred is a great tool that I personally love to use, it's hard to imagine life without it after you get used to it. It is essentially a replacement for Spotlight on macs and for those of you who are used to Apple's great spotlight search, you should love Alfred even more. Once you download Alfred (which is Free), you can easily access it using a short cut that you set. By default it should be set to option + space bar , it will bring up the alfred console on your display, which is where you will be typing in your keyword to trigger your database search.
Here is how you need to set up alfred to enable quick search.
Step 1 : Go to alfred's preference window.
Step 2 : Navigate to Features > Web Search, and 'Add Custom Search'
Step 3 : In the search URL field, add the Search address for your alumni website and add {query} to the end . The result should look like this : http://alumni.regencyuniversity.org/search?q={query}.
In the Title field, enter " Search Alumni database for {query} ".
You can enter any keyword that you would like to trigger the search, for the sake of generalization, we are going to use the keyword 'alumni', but you can set it to something shorter like your schools initials.Save your settings to complete setup.
The next time you need to run a quick search on your alumni database, you can simply type in your keyword into Alfred, followed by the search query you would like it to run. If you would like to look up for a person named steve, you can type in 'alumni steve' to quickly search through the database for 'steve'.
A similar arrangement can be set up using Google chrome too using the Custom Search Engine feature that you can find under the advanced settings in your preferences.
At the bottom of the list of existing search engines, you can add your alumni database as well. Add a name to the search like 'Alumni Database', and a keyword that will trigger the search. Just like in the earlier example, we are going to use 'alumni' as the keyword, but you can set this to anything you like.
In the URL field, add your search address appended with %s . So your URL should look something like this : http://alumni.regencyuniversity.org/search?q=%s
And that's about it . You're all set . Now if you'd ever need to quick search your alumni database, simply type in the keyword you selected, 'alumni' and the query you want to run into the address bar on Google chrome .
Keep watching this space for more tips on more ways to quick search your alumni database on almabase . Let us know what you think in the comments . Do you think a quick lookup feature helps ? what are some of the things you try to look up during a quick search?
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Spreadsheets have come a long way to help manage alumni data. The sheer simplicity makes spreadsheets often preferred over some powerful enterprise grade CRMs even. But it's not without its cons. The data gets stale quickly and there is just too much manual work when you need to pull information from different sources and stitch it together.
We've seen this problem plague advancement and alumni relations offices everywhere. So we set out to build something a few months ago. Something that brings the complexity of an integrated end-to-end platform like Almabase to a simple spreadsheet like format. Something magical and we can't wait to show it to you. We call it 'Data Studio' (code-named Jarvis previously).
With an easy-to-use interface, Data Studio will serve to be your one stop place to identify, segment and taken actions on your constituents. It always presents you with the latest data that is actionable both on a single profile or in bulk.
Filters do a great job in finding the constituents that you need to focus on. They help you drill down from 45,323 records to the 52 alumni that you must give a call right away or send an email to. You can filter down to a group of alumni that live in San Francisco, or even something more complex like alumni from a reunion year who have attended previous reunion events. The possibilities are endless.
Once you have narrowed down to the right segment of people, head over to the 'Actions' section to:
1. Send them an email
2. Create a new mailing list
3. Export information into a spreadsheet
4. Update information
5. Update Membership
There is a lot more that you can explore on Data Studio like customizing the columns and saving the most frequently used filters as a View. But we will leave that up to you to explore :)
We've had a great time working with our partner schools on building Data Studio and we can't wait to learn all the ways you will be using this feature on Almabase. As we continue to build more functionality into Data Studio, do remember to leave your feedback and features you would like to see in upcoming releases.
If you would like to take a deeper look into how you can use Data Studio for your needs, contact your account manager today.
Data Studio - Your supercharged spreadsheet
With an easy-to-use interface, Data Studio will serve to be your one stop place to identify, segment and taken actions on your constituents. It always presents you with the latest data that is actionable both on a single profile or in bulk.
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Since the launch of data studio in 2017, it has become one of the most used features on Almabase. It is the one-stop place for you as admins to work with your most up-to-date alumni data. It makes it incredibly simple for you to segment your alumni based on any data point that you have on them. You can even export this information, send them an email or perform other actions on the records.
But we received a lot of feedback from all of you, regarding a few functions that need to be improved. Taking your word into account, we made several key upgrades to the data studio.
Here are some of them :
Let’s say you’re organizing an event in Boston and want to invite everyone in the 50-mile radius to that event, how would you invite all of them? Earlier, you used to have to find all those cities and enter them manually into the city filter. Now you can start with a city or even a zip code and then choose a radius around it.
Data studio will then show you all the alumni that live in the area defined. You can then create an email group and you’re all set! As always, if another alum moves into the area, they are automatically added to that group. Look for the “AREA” filter on your data studio.
We’ve made it easier for you to take single click actions on various features of the platform. You will now be taken to the data studio with the appropriate data and actions pre-loaded for you to confirm. For instance, if you are on the directory and want to pull a list of everyone you’re currently seeing, you can now do that with a single click.
Birthdays are a great occasion for you to engage with your alumni and we’ve introduced a filter to make it easier for you to keep track of upcoming birthdays. Using the data studio birthday filter you can now see which alumni are celebrating birthdays today, this week or even this month.
Last but not the least, we’ve done a complete design refresh to make the data studio more user-friendly and also respond to user actions much faster. You will notice a visible difference in the speed while working on the data studio.
We hope you enjoy this new experience. Please do keep your feedback coming in as always.
Say Hello To Data Studio 2.0!
Keeping your feedback in account, we've made several key upgrades to our most used feature - the data studio. Here are some of them.
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