Altru Procedures - Membership Renewals MAILHOUSE

The Membership Renewals process is completed at the end of each month for Renewal Letters 1-5. The process has been configured in a way that will automatically pull the correct data sets if you run the process according to the Blanton Renewal Calendar Document (received from Daniller & Company). Check the Blanton Renewal Calendar Document. Check the Blanton Renewal Calendar Document to see when the Renewal Mailhouse Files are due and follow these instructions on the day indicated.

Create the Files

1. Click on the Memberships tab.
2. Click Blanton Membership.
3. Under Renewal Notices, click Process Membership Renewal Notices.
4. In the dropdown box labeled Membership Renewal Notices, select Renewal 1 Mailhouse.
5. Select Add A New Appeal and name the appeal with the month, year, and letter name.

Example: 0619R1 for June 2019 Renewal 1

1. Retype the appeal name in the Appeal Description field.
2. Hit Start.
3. Click on Download Output, select Mail, and save the Excel file on your desktop.
4. Repeat this process for Mailhouse Renewal Letters 2-5, creating a total of 5 Excel files.

Edit the Files

1. Open the R1 file.
2. Delete Columns A and B.
3. Scroll all the way to the last columns and check for any important notes, such as Major Donor or Do Not Send Renewals. Depending on what the note says, decide if you need to delete the member with that note from the file. Check for all notes and delete members as needed.
4. When all of the necessary members have been removed from the file, delete columns U through AB.
5. Expand columns F, G, and H, so you can read all of the data.
6. Column F contains the names of businesses. Look at each row where there is data in Column F. If there is data in that column, look to the corresponding field in Column G. If the word in Column G is HOME, delete the name of the business in Column F. If the word in Column G is BUSINESS, keep the name of the business in Column F.
7. After all of the data in Column F has been checked, delete Column G.
8. Delete rows with no mailing address.
9. Open the Renewal File Header Sample file and copy the headers.
10. Paste the headers into the first row of your first document.
11. Check each row to confirm the information contained in the columns matches the new headers you inserted.
12. Expand all columns, so you can see the data within them.
13. Check the Column P (Member Category) for any Individual Plus level members. This is an old membership level that we no longer offer. Change all Individual Plus entries to Dual.
14. Check Column R for entries with no Join Date and delete rows as needed. These are gift givers and do not receive renewal notices.
15. Review Column Q and check that each expiration date is the last day of the month. Correct as needed.
16. Check Column S for records with no VIP ID. Fill in any missing VIP IDs. If there is no VIP ID for the person, enter 555000004.
17. Read through each name in Columns A, D, and E and check for incorrect addressees or salutations and for accented letters. Altru has a bug where it will insert a bad character in the place of an accented letter. Fix any errors.
18. Save the file as an Excel file, following this naming convention: BMA Renewal 1 for May 19.
19. Repeat these steps for files 2-5.

Create the Suppression File

Part One: VIP List

1. Go to the VIP Report tab and select Gift Report Writer.
2. In the Request Name field, type “Barnett” and hit view request list.
3. In the View Reports for Creator CSU field, change BL to CF and hit Search.
4. Choose the report named Barnett by clicking on the blue “Barnett.” Do not hit Download.
5. Replace the current Download name with a new name.

Example: SUPP0519

1. Sometimes the VIP report search function doesn’t show the latest report pulled, so you need to remember the last download name you used and the date it was pulled. Enter the name and date here: SUPP1123 / 10-24-2023

1. Replace the Deposit Date Range with the correct dates for this month — the former end date (which you saved in Step 5.a) through today.
2. Hit Submit
3. Once the job is complete, go to the Download/Upload tab and select Download A Gift Report.
4. Enter your report name in the Download/Dataset Name field and hit Submit Download.
5. Choose Download to Excel as the format you want.
6. Open the file in Excel.
7. Delete ALL information except the VIP ID column. File should now contain only VIP IDs and nothing else.
8. Save the file with only the VIP ID data listed and rename using the following naming convention: BMA Suppression for June 19.

Part Two: Altru List

1. Navigate to the Information Library (under the Analysis tab).
2. Search for “suppression.”
3. Select Renewal Suppression File.
4. Click Edit Definition.
5. Change the date range, using the old end date as the beginning date and today’s date as the new end date. Click Save.
6. Download as Excel.
7. Open the Altru Suppression Excel you just downloaded.
8. Copy all VIP ID/Alternate Lookup ID data and paste into the last rows of the VIP suppression list Excel. (i.e., in the same column as the other VIP IDs)
9. Save and close the Altru Suppression Excel.

Part Three: De-dupe the combined file

1. In the combined VIP/Altru suppression file, select the column of VIP IDs.
2. Click the Data dropdown
3. Under Table Tools, hit Remove Duplicates
4. Click Remove Duplicates.
5. Click OK.
6. An alert will show up. Click OK.

Send the Files to Daniller

1. Create a folder in Box and add all 6 files (Renewals 1-5 and the Suppression file).
2. Password protect the folder.
3. Email a link to the Box folder to Adam Sweeney at Daniller.
4. In a separate email, send the password for this month’s folder.