Contacts

The Contacts feature in Denari can serve two functions, both at the same time, when needed. First, it can be a place to record contacts like phone calls, emails sent, etc. and store them for future reference. Second, it can be a simple to-do list type application related to your donors. You can create a task, assign that task to a Denari user, set a scheduled date, and review to verify that the task has been completed.

 

Suppose you just made a phone call to a major donor and want a permanent record of that call. Click the Names button on the left/Name List Management/select the name record. Now click on Contacts History on the right. Here you see a list of all of the contact records, if there are any, that have been created for this donor. Click Add New to create a new contact record.

 

 

Click Save to have a record of your phone conversation.

 

Example: You just finished a fund raising event, like a golf tournament, and you want to follow up by sending a letter to each of the golfers. You could, of course, adapt this to any scenario. Earlier, as the golfers were signing up, you assigned a classification to each of them so that we can easily get a list when needed. Now we are ready to schedule that follow up letter.

 

But first you need to do some set up.

 

Task Type: Click the CRM button on the left/Task Types. A task type is an activity. In our example, it is the Golf Tournament follow up letter. We’ll look at shortly how to set up a bunch of tasks to do as a group and types are an important part of that process. First you will create the type by clicking Add New here.

 

 

You’ll give the record a Description and in this case it might be “Golf Tournament Follow Up”. Give it a Code just like you would in any record you create in Denari.

 

You can select a Type and choose a Look up Color. The color will help you identify certain types of tasks from a list that we’ll see later.

 

The Default Text field can be several things. If you were planning to make phone calls you might jot down three things that you want to cover in the phone call as a reminder to yourself. If this is a letter, you could type the entire letter here. We’ll see why later.

 

Finally, save the record.

 

Resource/Assigned To: This is the person who will perform the task or make the contact in the future. Click the CRM button and click on Assigned To. Click Add New to create a new one.

 

 

Enter the person's name in the Assigned To field. Select their User record from the drop down and check the Active check box if it is not already checked. The resource person must have a user record in Denari. You can set up other staff members who will be performing the tasks as needed.

 

Click Save.

 

You are now ready to assign the task of sending follow up letters to the golfters. First create a name segment that identifies the golfers using the classification you’ve assigned to each of them.

 

Now go to the Gear Icon/Mass Scheduler.

 

 

Select that Name Segment that gives us a list of the golfers. In the Schedule Type field we’ll select the Follow Up Letter record that we created earlier. Now enter a Schedule Date, that’s the date that we want the task to be performed,  and then select a Resource from your list, the person who will perform the task.

 

Finally you can mark the items open or closed as we are creating them. In this case you want them to be open so that you can close them as we complete each task, but there are some occasions when you just want to make a record of a contact in mass but there is no task to complete so you could mark them complete as you create the record.

 

When we click the Make Schedule Entries button on the right, Denari will create a contact record in each golfer’s name record.

 

When the person or Resource that these tasks have been assigned to comes in each morning they can click the CRM button then View All Open Items and filter the page to show only their items. Here they will see a list of the items that are scheduled for today. Click on an item in the list and it will open. Since this is a letter they can click the Get Default Notes button at the top and that will fill the notes field with the body of the letter. Now click the Print Letter button at the top of the page and Denari will produce an 8 1/2 by 11 letter in your In Box that you can print and drop in the mail. If this were a reminder to make a phone call you could enter the two or three items you want to discuss with the donor in the Schedule Type record instead of a letter body. When you click Get Notes, that will fill into the notes field. Now click the Completed check box and hit Save and return to the list to continue today’s tasks.

 

You can also filter this page by date if you want to work on items from a date other than today. Just select the date and hit ‘Search’.

 

If you use name segmenter to send mass emails, Denari can create a contact record automatically in each donor's name record who receives the email. There is a setting in Setup (Gear Icon/Set Up) that will allow you to turn this feature on or off.

 

There are three reports available and you will find them by clicking the Reports button on the left then CRM.

 

Scheduled Call Log Report. You can filter this report by Resource, Type, and Target Call Date. You can then print this in PDF format by clicking that link at the top. Some people find it easier to work off of a printed document rather than the computer screen when making phone calls, etc. However, you’ll still need to update the records in Denari.

 

Scheduled Call Log Report Summary. This is more of a management type report and can be filtered by Target Date. Again, you can print this by clicking the Make PDF Link at the top of the page.

 

The big value in using the contacts feature in Denari is that it provides a record of contacts made with each donor. You may find that you only want this for some of your donors or you may want to keep those records for all of your donors. There is no limit to the number of contact records that you can create.