The latest round of NPSP Releases has led to several exciting changes for System Administrators and those within the Development & Advancement Offices. The highlights include major revisions to the Recurring Donations, updates to the Contact Merge tab, and modifications to the Gift Entry.
Enhanced Recurring Donations
The most exciting update in the latest round NPSP Releases is the revamp of the Recurring Donation object. This update provides a simplified way of managing updates to Recurring Donation schedules and monitoring the Recurring Donations with related Opportunity records.
Update to the Field Value Names
The field values have been renamed for an easier understanding:
- Recurring Type – Indicates the schedule for the Recurring Donation. “Open” if there is no end date, and “Fixed” if there is a planned end date. If the Recurring Donation is “Fixed,” then you must populate the “Number of Planned Installments” field.
- Effective Date – The date the new or modified payment schedule starts.
- Closed Reason – Text field to allow for noting why the Recurring Donation stopped.
- Current Year Value – The expected value of donations this year related to this Recurring Donation, calculated by the NPSP Customizable Rollups.
- Next Year Value – The expected value of donations next year related to this Recurring Donation, calculated by the NPSP Customizable Rollups.
- Total Paid Amount – The total amount of donations paid on this Recurring Donation, calculated by the NPSP Customizable Rollups.
- Number of Paid Installments – The total number of individual installments paid on this Recurring Donation, calculated by the NPSP Customizable Rollups.
Helpful Side Bar Component
With the Enhanced Recurring Donations comes a new page layout that includes a sidebar that displays the Active Schedule and the Upcoming Installments. The Active Schedule includes the payment details and the related Salesforce Campaign. If the schedule is modified (i.e. an update is made to the Payment Date or Payment Method), the “Future Schedule” details are displayed under the “Current Schedule.”
Underneath the Active Schedule is the list of Upcoming Installments. This is a list of all of the upcoming Opportunities that will be created in accordance with the active schedule(s). Note that if there is a change made to the schedule in the future, the Upcoming Installment will show the field updates to Date, Amount, and/or Payment Method.
Next Installment Opportunity
Unlike the legacy version of Recurring Donations, the Enhanced Recurring Donations only creates one related Opportunity record at a time. Just like the Opportunity rollups on the Account and Contact, all Recurring Donation Opportunities and their related rollups are created during the NPSP nightly batch. With this update of only one future installment Opportunity being created, reporting on Recurring Donations and the related Opportunities now shows only Closed Opportunities and the one future installment—providing a much cleaner reporting experience!
If a donor chooses to pay their installment early, there are a few caveats to note. One is that if the Close Date of the Opportunity is within three dates of the Next Donation Date, NPSP will not automatically create an installment for the same month. If the Close Date is greater than three days away from the Next Donation Date, NPSP will generate a new installment during the same month.
Assign General Allocations Units & Campaign
For each Recurring Donation, you can assign the General Allocation Units and Campaign that should be related to each installment Opportunity record. This is an optional feature. However, if you choose not to go forward with the automation, you would need to add the related GAU Allocation and Campaign designation for each Opportunity installment.
Enabling the Enhanced Recurring Donations does take some preparation. For a step-by-step guide on installing this new feature, you can review the Enhanced Recurring Donations Upgrade Guide.
Revised Contact Merge Tab
One slightly hidden feature of Salesforce is the Contact Merge tab. This tab can be very useful for individuals who manage and maintain Salesforce data. In this release, the Contact Merge tab has been updated to include two options: one to search for Contact records and one to merge duplicate Contacts.
Before the release, only the contact search option was available on this tab. Now, you can manage all of your Duplicate Record Sets in one place, as well as manually search for Contacts to merge. For those organizations without a third-party duplicate management tool, this update to the Contact Merge tab allows for data cleaning all in one place!
Updates to the Gift Entry
With the latest releases for NPSP, there were a few enhancements made to the Batch Gift Entry. Now, the picklist only displays the values that are available for the related Opportunity record types. Additionally, there are default values that are set for Donation Donor, Account, or Contact donor fields. When that default value is set, then the other fields that are related to the default donor record are populated when the Opportunity processed.
As with all changes, we recommend that you first install and test in a sandbox environment prior to installing it into a production org. Also, note that the updates to the NPSP are made from suggestions from community members like you! Share your idea or vote on an idea you’re passionate about on the Trailblazer Community Idea Search.
