Update History

Version 61

(Publish Date: May 19 2023)

Improvements:

Emails:

A new "preview text" functionality has been added. This allows your marketing or relationship emails to contain a short sentence next to the sender name in most email clients that previews what the email is about. This makes a user more likely to open it.

General:

Highlight functionality has been enabled on more tables, so when you search, the word that matched will be more clearly identified.

Grants:

New date fields have been added: Final Report Deadline, Effective Period Start, Effective Period End, and Date Awarded.
A new "Restriction" dropdown has been added, allowing for quicker and easier categorization of Program vs Operating grants.
The main grants listing has improved filtering ability.
The Grants report has been redone with a Date Type selection dropdown. This will allow for a single report for Grants rather than multiple reports for each date type. The old reports have been renamed to indicate that they will be deleted in a future update. Please rebuild all saved reports using the new report.

Volunteers:

The volunteer slots on an event page are now properly ordered by their start date and time.
A typo on the signup notification email has been fixed.

Bug Fixes:

The optional address field on volunteer event signups was not saving, this has been fixed.
Some pages with tables could not be filtered when clicking the headers. This has been resolved on the pages where it was an issue.

Version 60

(Publish Date: April 8, 2023)

In the first full update of 2023, we bring you a number of improvements and bug fixes.

Improvements:

Donation Forms:

When a donation fails to process, it will no longer be entered into the system as if it is an unfulfilled pledge, but instead show a donation amount of $0.00. The notes on the donation will indicate the donor's intended amount. This will prevent confusion in having multiple pledges entered, with some seeming to be unfulfilled, simply because the donor's first attempt(s) to donate were not successful. The failed payments will also be flagged in such a way that they will appear on the Failed Payments report. Theoretically, these failed payments will simply be deleted after you've taken any needed action.
Videos from the video maker can now be embedded into Donation Forms and included as links within the emails sent when donations are completed.

Donations:

An external field, Donation Reference Number, used exclusively by the API is now visible and editable. It can also be included in reports.

Letters:

Videos can now be inserted into letter templates. If the letter is emailed as text or PDF, the user can then click the video image to view it.

Volunteers:

For volunteer events, you now have the option to add in fields for a volunteer's phone number, address, and birthdate to the time slot signup area. If enabled, these fields will be required.

General:

Libraries powering the system have been updated.

Bug Fixes:

Merging donors will now verify that both donors still exist. Previously if you opened multiple tabs and merged, say donor 1 and 2, then tried to merge 2 and 3, it would fail because 2 no longer existed.

Version 59.1

(Publish Date: February 20, 2023)

This minor update fixed the following bugs and made the following changes:

Fix an issue with the page template editor
Fixed a permission issue with the User Editor
Added in email 2 and email 3 into the donor listing so search would find them
Made some language connected to volunteer events more generic so that it could be used for other purposes. (IE instead of Signup to Volunteer it simply says Signup)

Version 59

(Publish Date: November 15, 2022)

This minor update contains a few new features and improvements, and will be the last major update before the new year. As we did last year, there will be a pause in development to ensure things are stable for the busy holiday giving season.

Improvements:

Donation Forms:

A new option to add a popup with further instructions for donation forms has been added. This can be very useful to highlight other ways to give, or to provide further instructions for when you are selling tickets to an event.

Donations:

When entering a donation, you can now include specific notes about the payment received as a separate field.

Donors:

When adding or editing a donor, you have the ability to jump straight to the Add Donation screen, saving a click and page load.

General:

Libraries powering the system have been updated.

Bug Fixes:

Deleting Email Marketing Lists was not functioning. This has been fixed.
Historic donation entries were incorrectly being marked as Anonymous by default. This will no longer occur.

Version 58

(Publish Date: August 17, 2022)

After a break in new features and changes, we're back with a small update that is almost entirely behind the scenes.

Improvements:

General:

Libraries powering the system have been updated.

Tasks:

The main task list now defaults to ordering tasks by those due soonest.
The main task list now contains the donor's name and a link to their profile, if the task is connected to a donor.

Bug Fixes:

The Grants tab was missing from the donor view, this has been restored.
After editing a letter, the system now directs you to the page you were originally viewing.

Version 57

(Publish Date: February 22, 2022)

New Feature:

Donor Relationships - This new feature allows you to track your donor's relationships with each other. It's designed to be very simple, flexible, and easy to use. It can be found on the Donor Info tab, which has also been divided up to keep things more organized:

Hopefully this proves to be a useful tool to quickly see how your donors are connected to each other!

Improvements:

Donation Forms:

You can now enable optional fields for a second set of names (Title, First, Last) which can then be added to the database alongside the primary first, middle, and last names. These fields can be turned on on the form editor under the Form Labels and Fields tab.
Greetings (addressee and salutation) will now be generated based on your preferred setting for generating them (set on the Donor Edit page using the Customize button in the upper left), and if the secondary names are enabled/provided, they will be included as well.
Donation Forms can now be categorized, which can be useful if you have a large number of forms that you've accumulated over time. You can add new categories on the Options Page under the Lists tab. Then on the Donation Form editor, you can filter to see the forms by category.

Reports:

Some additional filters have been added to allow you to search through donor notes, donation notes, payment notes and reference number, interaction text, grant notes and grant restrictions.
Some strange behavior with the sticky header for the columns was resolved, and mobile function and appearance was improved.

Bug Fixes:

The alignment of dropdown menus was off after the Version 56 update, this was fixed on January 29th.
When editing a payment, a donor's giving stats weren't being recalculated right away, which could result in reports not being accurate. This has been resolved.
When merging donors, the arrows to transfer information between the two selected profiles were misaligned. They've been straightened out.

Version 56

(Publish Date: January 28, 2022)

New Feature:

Receipted Amount for Payments - After discussions with a few customers on this issue, we've added a new optional field called Receipted Amount that can be tracked on payments. This new field is turned off by default. To enable it, when adding a Donation, click the gear icon in the upper left and enable it from the choices shown:

Why this is sometimes needed: There are several different possibilities for why this is useful and needed. Two examples are:

In-Kind Gifts - Some organizations track in kind gifts by setting the Donation Amount to 0, but making the Payment Amount equal to the fair market value of the items donated.
Event Tickets - If you are selling tickets to an event, the donor typically cannot deduct the entire amount of their gift on their taxes.

In both of the above scenarios, if you are generating a year-end receipt and use the calculated fields of YTD Payments Received or Previous Year Payments Received to present the donor with the total amount they've donated for tax purposes, the total will be inaccurate. Thus, if this is a problem your organization faces, you can enable the Receipted Amount field to produce more accurate calculations.

NOTE: As part of the update, the receipted amount will automatically be made equal to the payment received amount for all payment entries in the system. If you do not enable the feature, behind the scenes, it will continue to make them equal. Once enabled, however, you can make the field have whatever value is desired by editing previous entries or when adding new entries.

Improvements:

Donors:

In order to make it easier for you to find outstanding pledges and recurring donations, a new table will appear above the donations listing on the Donor View if they have any of these types of donations. If they don't have any such donations, the table will not appear.

Donation Forms:

Previously the Payment Type would always be set to Credit Card, but in the event that you've customized the labels to read something different (for example, Credit/Debit Card) this would result in the online transactions having the wrong label. You now have a choice on the Payment Settings tab to choose the payment type.
The Newsletter option on the Form Labels and Fields will now be hidden if you don't have marketing emails enabled.
When a POSSIBLE DUPLICATE donor is found, if there is only one possible matched donor found, the notes area will now contain the ID of the nearly-matching donor and a link to their profile:

General:

Behind the scenes libraries that power the system have all been updated.

Marketing Emails:

When a donor clicks on a link in an email, the overall status of the email will be changed from "Opened" to "Clicked", allowing you to better filter emails when gauging success of a campaign.
"Dropped" has also been added to the filters. This was already being logged but wasn't in the filter choices. (Dropped indicates that the email address was previously flagged as invalid or the user reported you as spam, so to prevent your account from accumulating invalid sends and hurting your send reputation, the email is dropped from the queue and not sent.)

Bug Fixes:

Some elements, such as button drop-downs, were getting cut off if a table had only one data entry. This has been fixed.
The volunteer history on a donor's profile was loading incorrectly and including data from other donors. This has been corrected.
The list editor could at times cause an endless loop as it was updating choices resulting in the page timing out. It will now behave properly.
The image selector popup in the marketing email editor was not working, it has been restored.
The image upload fields on the letters page allowed for ridiculously large images to be added. It will no longer accept large files.

Version 55

(Publish Date: November 24, 2021)

New Video Maker Tool

We're very happy to share with you an exciting new tool that will allow you to make your appeals and thank you messages even more exciting: A video making tool! This tool allows you to upload a video or record yourself with your webcam. You can then add your logo and custom text using a variety of font and overlay choices. How does it work? Well, watch the video below which was created using the Video Maker:

This tool will, we are certain, be very valuable to you as you continue to work to make your communications ever more personal. We are excited to hear your thoughts as you make use of this new tool. Hat tip to Borders Web Development for their assistance in this project.

Other Changes:

The video maker was our primary focus for this update, but a number of small bug fixes related to the new look and feel were pushed through the last two weeks. We won't enumerate them all here, but wanted to share our thanks to those users who reported the issues.

As always, please get in touch with your suggestions and feedback!

Version 54

(Publish Date: November 10, 2021)

New Look and Feel

With this update of Donor Wrangler, we've upgraded our look and feel, making use of the latest version of Bootstrap to make the site even more mobile friendly and up to current standards. While things do look a bit different, you should continue to enjoy the same user-friendly experience that you've always had. Likely, the biggest change you will notice is that the menu has been completely reorganized. Certain items, such as Letters, Emails, the Image Library, and Marketing Emails have now been grouped together into one main menu item called "Correspondence". Clicking this top level item will reveal these choices. By reorganizing and grouping the menu in such a way, it will hopefully make some things easier to find, and will allow for the menu to continue to grow as new features are added.

New "Timeframe Payment Totals" Column and Report

In order to make calculating the number of payments received over a given time period, this update includes a variation on the Timeframe Donation Totals report and column, namely one that centers around payment totals over a given timeframe. This new column, like the timeframe donation totals, is available on any Donor report. In addition, a new dedicated report has been added.

This variant is important largely due to recurring gifts and pledges. If a donor signs up as a recurring giver in 2020, the will not show up in a Timeframe Donation Totals report because their original donation was logged in 2020. (Pledges function the same way.) Thus, if you wish to generate a list of all donors who have paid at least $300 over the last 18 months, such a donor could be missed. With the new column and report, this will allow you to ensure they are included.

New Features to Come

Now that this necessary update to the look and feel is complete, stay tuned for our next updates, which will include some exciting new features!

Version 53

(Publish Date: October 13, 2021)

Version 53 brings several new improvements in the run up to a revamp of our design coming in the next update.

Improvements:

Donations:

Additional filters have been added to the donations listing.

Donors:

On the donors listing, new filters have been added, allowing you to filter the donor list by more parameters.
Tags for donors can now be merged on the Options screen, letting you combine similar groups.

General:

Libraries powering the system have been updated.

Interactions:

Filters for interaction type and campaign have been added to the Interactions tab on Donor View and Grant View. In addition, a search box has been added so you can locate specific information in a long log.

Reports:

A new Emails report has been added, allowing you to filter your sent emails to see how many were delivered in a given period, opened, etc. A more visual dashboard will eventually be added, but for now this will allow you to gather basic statistics.

Tasks:

A new button has been added to the Tasks tab on the pages where it appears which allows you to add a new Task from a template at that view rather than having to go to the Tasks page.
You can now take an existing task and convert it to a Task Template, allowing for easier re-use of older tasks that already exist.

Volunteers:

The volunteer events page has been cleaned up to make it easier to filter events by date, which becomes useful as the listing grows.

Bug Fixes:

When attempting to update the credit card of a donor that was created in test mode, a fatal error would be thrown. This has been fixed.
Pagination on some tables was not working. Updating the libraries has resolved this issue.

Version 52

(Publish Date: August 15, 2021)

New Features:

Grants Module

After a number of incremental updates, the Grant management module is now available!

The Grants module can be found in the menu underneath Donations. For an overview of how the system works, please check out this help article: Overview of the Grants Module.

If your organization will not make use of this feature, you can turn it off on the Options page, under the System Settings tab.

Task Templates

A crucial component of the Grants module, the Task Templates feature can also be quite useful for general donor management. You'll find it under the Tasks menu:

For more information, please refer to this help article: Using Task Templates.

Campaign Thermometer on Donation Forms

Requested by one of our customers, we've added a Campaign Thermometer option for Donation Forms. When setting up your form, at the bottom of the Form Labels and Fields tab, you will find this new option:

Finally, after you save your form messages, this is what you'll see on your donation form page:

We hope this will help you create more attractive and engaging donation forms!

Improvements:

Donors:

If a donor has a Stripe customer ID, you can now delete the card from their account through Donor Wrangler. Previously you could replace the card on file with Stripe with a new card, but not remove it unless you logged into your Stripe account directly. This is found in the upper right hand menu, assuming they have a customer record in Stripe. (Note that the system will not let you delete a card on file if there are any pending recurring gifts.)

Image Library:

When cropping images, you can now set the cropper to use set dimensions: 4x6 (portrait), 6x4 (landscape), 1x1 (square), or free form.

Tasks:

The popup that appears when clicking the name of a task in a task listing now has a View button.
When updating a parent task to have a new Donor ID, it will update the Donor ID of all subtasks associated with the parent task. Additionally, all attachments (including attachments on subtasks) will be updated as well.
When creating or editing a task, you can now change the Donation and Payment after setting or changing the Donor ID.
The task listing now saves its state, meaning that any filters you've applied will be retained until you click the Reset Table button. (This is the same as how the Donor listing works.)

Bug Fixes:

Some data was being shown in the change log that shouldn't have been, because it can't be undone. This data will no longer be tracked.
When deleting a donor or task, associated attachments were not being deleted. Further, attachments weren't included in the merge donors function. This is now fixed.

Version 51

(Publish Date: August 3, 2021)

New Features:

Donor Profile Pictures: You can now upload profile pictures of your donors. The option appears on the edit screen right beneath the Display Name on the edit screen. Images will automatically be resized to 800 pixels wide to save storage space and load faster.

Image Cropping: Images that are uploaded can now be cropped from the Image Manager.

Subtasks: Sometimes tasks have multiple steps and may require input from multiple people. This is especially useful for writing grants, when multiple people are likely involved in the process. Thus, we've created the ability to have Subtasks. On each task, a new tab for Subtasks appears.

When viewing the parent task, then, the number of subtasks and how many of them are complete are shown:

Subtasks have all the same features as tasks, meaning they can have different due dates, different reminder dates, different assignees, their own attachments, and so on. We hope this feature will prove useful in keeping you organized!

Improvements:

Emails:

When emailing a letter as an attachment, you can now change the PDF filename to something other than LetterXXXX.pdf.

Interactions:

You now have a dropdown choice of who the interaction is with when adding/editing an interaction, making it easier for you to add interactions on behalf of others.

Marketing Emails:

The marketing email setup wizard now lets you go back a step.

Tasks:

The task reminders field has been improved to allow you to add/remove days with a plus and minus button, rather than typing days separated with a comma.
Task listings on tabs throughout the system have been improved in their appearance and to show more relevant data. The name of each task can be clicked to pop up the description and completion notes if applicable.
The main Tasks page has also been refreshed to use this new format and dynamic filtering.
The layout of the View Tasks page has been cleaned up as well to match the style of the rest of the system.

Bug Fixes:

When Bulk Actions were being performed on an Interaction Report, the donor ID was not being set correctly. This has now been fixed.
The Bulk Add Task option on Reports was missing the Reminder Days field. This has been added.
Once an account was locked for too many invalid logins, resetting the password failed to unlock it. This was corrected. (July 27, 2021)
Bulleted or numbered lists on the letter editor will now have appropriate spacing.
The Preview Changes button on the letter editor shouldn't have been displayed until the initial draft of the letter has been saved. It now is hidden until it is usable.
The Login History data table on the Users page was scrunched up, it has now been fixed so it cakes up the entire width of the tab.

Version 50

(Publish Date: July 21, 2021)

New Features:

Task Reminders: Long requested, it's finally here. You can now have tasks send you reminders before their due date. As part of the initial setup, all tasks will default to reminding you 7 days before their due date. You can customize the number of days for the reminder, and also specify more than one reminder:

Improvements:

Attachments:

Attachments have been expanded and are now available on Donations, Payments and Tasks.

Donors:

When editing a donor, you can now choose a non-default format for the auto-generated addressee name. (IE if the default format is Mr. and Mrs. Bob and Susie Jones, you can override and choose Mr. and Mrs. Bob Jones instead.)

General:

The icons that are used in the system have been updated to use Font Awesome icons for more flexibility as new features are added.
User login sessions will now last for 12 hours instead of 8, reducing the chance of you being logged out and work being interrupted towards the end of the working day.
When your account is denied access to a particular feature, the system will now tell you which permission needs enabled on the account to use that feature.
When you click a link in an email (for example to view a task linked to from a reminder email) and you are not already logged in, the system will now properly direct you to the page you were trying to view.
The API has been greatly expanded and improved. Contact support for further details.
The permissions for Add/Edit/Delete on Donations and Interactions have been separated into distinct permissions for Add/Edit and Delete to match all the other module permissions.

Volunteers:

Volunteer Events can now have a start date and end date, which is useful for events that may have a setup the day before and cleanup the day after. It also can be helpful if you're making a signup that covers regular needs on a weekly basis, the end date will be used to determine if the event is "over" or not.

Bug Fixes:

One other location that was not using the preferred date format setting has been fixed and will now use your preferred format.
Transparent PNG images uploaded to the Image Manager will now retain their transparency when rotated.
Email address validation has been improved to prohibit entries like donor@gmail from being recognized as valid.
Popup search boxes to help you locate donors will now be sized appropriately.

Version 49 and Below:

For information about updates prior to Version 50, please visit this article.