Comments on: Blackbaud merry-go-round and the cost of closed systems http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems Confessions of a Non-Profit Executive Director Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:17:34 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Gerald Norman http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems/comment-page-1#comment-98157 Gerald Norman Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:40:25 +0000 http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems#comment-98157 I used to work for Blackbaud (Conversions Manager) and left about 8 years ago. Since leaving Blackbaud, I have worked with a number of non-profits either converting from or to The Raiser's Edge, mostly as a volunteer. It doesn't have to be expensive or painful. I can help with conversion or data integration with other systems. I used to work for Blackbaud (Conversions Manager) and left about 8 years ago. Since leaving Blackbaud, I have worked with a number of non-profits either converting from or to The Raiser’s Edge, mostly as a volunteer. It doesn’t have to be expensive or painful. I can help with conversion or data integration with other systems.

]]> By: Allan Benamer http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems/comment-page-1#comment-95322 Allan Benamer Tue, 11 Mar 2008 06:18:57 +0000 http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems#comment-95322 Whew, an RE to Force.com conversion? Myself and Peter Gulka over at blackbus.org are both still looking for this mythical software beast. Someday, this will happen but so far no takers. This is Blackbaud's great bulwark against the future. The minute someone learns to do a RE to Force.com conversion and learns to productize that, please have them tell me so I can look into shorting Blackbaud stock ;) I think Force.com is great but I have some reservations about Salesforce in general that pertains to the fact that your code has to somewhat conform to Salesforce.com business logic in order for it to interoperate with third-party Apps in AppExchange. From what I can tell, Force.com doesn't change that because these fundamental constructs are what the Apps expect. This means you cannot really store data in custom objects simply because the Apps don't expect it. This isn't a huge issue if you never expect your app to work with third-party Apps but it's like hacking your own arm off to put on a one-sleeved sweater. Sure, it fits now but perhaps this wasn't what you intended! Whew, an RE to Force.com conversion? Myself and Peter Gulka over at blackbus.org are both still looking for this mythical software beast. Someday, this will happen but so far no takers. This is Blackbaud’s great bulwark against the future. The minute someone learns to do a RE to Force.com conversion and learns to productize that, please have them tell me so I can look into shorting Blackbaud stock ;)

I think Force.com is great but I have some reservations about Salesforce in general that pertains to the fact that your code has to somewhat conform to Salesforce.com business logic in order for it to interoperate with third-party Apps in AppExchange. From what I can tell, Force.com doesn’t change that because these fundamental constructs are what the Apps expect. This means you cannot really store data in custom objects simply because the Apps don’t expect it. This isn’t a huge issue if you never expect your app to work with third-party Apps but it’s like hacking your own arm off to put on a one-sleeved sweater. Sure, it fits now but perhaps this wasn’t what you intended!

]]> By: Lawrence Swiader http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems/comment-page-1#comment-95321 Lawrence Swiader Tue, 11 Mar 2008 02:22:21 +0000 http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems#comment-95321 Hi Allan, has anyone taken you up on your offer to report a RE/BBEC conversion to Force.com? I like Force.com not necessarily as a replacement, but as a tool to look across it and the many systems in which we have constituent information. Hi Allan, has anyone taken you up on your offer to report a RE/BBEC conversion to Force.com? I like Force.com not necessarily as a replacement, but as a tool to look across it and the many systems in which we have constituent information.

]]> By: David Zeidman http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems/comment-page-1#comment-46275 David Zeidman Fri, 07 Sep 2007 08:08:27 +0000 http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems#comment-46275 Thank you Allan. lbrewster please feel free to contact me via my site at http://www.zeidman.info/contact.htm. We specialize in such customizations for Blackbaud products. David Zeidman Thank you Allan. lbrewster please feel free to contact me via my site at http://www.zeidman.info/contact.htm. We specialize in such customizations for Blackbaud products.

David Zeidman

]]> By: Allan Benamer http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems/comment-page-1#comment-45740 Allan Benamer Thu, 06 Sep 2007 02:32:52 +0000 http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems#comment-45740 I would suggest that you look at zeidman.info. I would suggest that you look at zeidman.info.

]]> By: lbrewster http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems/comment-page-1#comment-45617 lbrewster Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:08:04 +0000 http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems#comment-45617 I was reading through the blog and I hate to interject with my own personal needs, but I am looking for a third party vendor that can write a customization for the FINANCIAL EDGE... There are some validation features I want to employ as part of our daily processing. BB isn't sharing an ISV list with me so easily. Thanks! I was reading through the blog and I hate to interject with my own personal needs, but I am looking for a third party vendor that can write a customization for the FINANCIAL EDGE… There are some validation features I want to employ as part of our daily processing.

BB isn’t sharing an ISV list with me so easily.

Thanks!

]]> By: abenamer http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems/comment-page-1#comment-6352 abenamer Mon, 05 Mar 2007 14:25:53 +0000 http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems#comment-6352 I definitely admit that the problem is NOT Blackbaud's. It's fairly clear that I stated that. It's ours as a sector. It's clear that Blackbaud is chosen without an eye to SOA or any kind of real interoperability. For whatever reason, nonprofit management in 2006 and going ahead is not seeing the inherent problems behind a Blackbaud deployment. How is it that nonprofit management set up a core line of business application (which is what RE is) that doesn't talk to anyone? There's not a particularly large ecosystem of developers or third party vendors around Blackbaud. Why is that, David? You know the answers all too well. The friction involved with proprietary systems (data conversion, lack of interoperability, no established canonical business process) is what's killing us here. We COULD do it ourselves but let's not kid ourselves. I run a $500,000 budget by myself, five consultants and an intern. Can you tell me where I would have time to do this? LOL. So... it's acknowledged that we'd have to hire consultants in order to do the most important work. I resent that simply because the technology and the process behind it has become a hindrance and not a help to nonprofits. There's now an associated cost with any kind of integration -- something that other CRMs don't make you have to pay. My post was not intended to slight the work that you or other Blackbaud consultants do -- clearly, you are there to help grease the wheels as it were. However, it is my hope that by constantly pointing out the downstream deployment costs of Raiser's Edge that we, as a sector, put some heat on Blackbaud to accelerate 3rd party integration efforts such as yours with an open API. And when I mean open, I don't mean paying for the VBA module (can you care to discuss how much that VBA module is?) and the cost of set-up for a .NET application development environment. I mean something where we can use other programming languages to access Raiser's Edge itself. I also mean more than a half-hearted attempt by Blackbaud to post code samples without documentation. As for my org's data conversion -- no, it was ugly. Our third party mailing list vendor was horrible. Dupes, typos, deletions that were not carried out abounded throughout the database and this was due to lack of care on our part in managing the vendor. All that happened before I got here so it's easy to slag but my suspicions are that those issues are typical for many, if not most, nonprofits. As I said, this isn't Blackbaud's fault. We purchased a proprietary system in the first place and didn't take care of it. We then moved to yet another proprietary system (Blackbaud) and paid the conversion costs. However, that was in 2003 and it's arguable we didn't have a choice. It's clear now though that with the advent of SugarCRM, Compass.NET and Salesforce that there ARE alternatives out there now. As always though, I'm glad to hear from you. You haven't been around in a while. Glad to see you still read the blog! I definitely admit that the problem is NOT Blackbaud’s. It’s fairly clear that I stated that. It’s ours as a sector. It’s clear that Blackbaud is chosen without an eye to SOA or any kind of real interoperability. For whatever reason, nonprofit management in 2006 and going ahead is not seeing the inherent problems behind a Blackbaud deployment. How is it that nonprofit management set up a core line of business application (which is what RE is) that doesn’t talk to anyone? There’s not a particularly large ecosystem of developers or third party vendors around Blackbaud. Why is that, David? You know the answers all too well.

The friction involved with proprietary systems (data conversion, lack of interoperability, no established canonical business process) is what’s killing us here. We COULD do it ourselves but let’s not kid ourselves. I run a $500,000 budget by myself, five consultants and an intern. Can you tell me where I would have time to do this? LOL. So… it’s acknowledged that we’d have to hire consultants in order to do the most important work. I resent that simply because the technology and the process behind it has become a hindrance and not a help to nonprofits. There’s now an associated cost with any kind of integration — something that other CRMs don’t make you have to pay. My post was not intended to slight the work that you or other Blackbaud consultants do — clearly, you are there to help grease the wheels as it were. However, it is my hope that by constantly pointing out the downstream deployment costs of Raiser’s Edge that we, as a sector, put some heat on Blackbaud to accelerate 3rd party integration efforts such as yours with an open API.

And when I mean open, I don’t mean paying for the VBA module (can you care to discuss how much that VBA module is?) and the cost of set-up for a .NET application development environment. I mean something where we can use other programming languages to access Raiser’s Edge itself. I also mean more than a half-hearted attempt by Blackbaud to post code samples without documentation.

As for my org’s data conversion — no, it was ugly. Our third party mailing list vendor was horrible. Dupes, typos, deletions that were not carried out abounded throughout the database and this was due to lack of care on our part in managing the vendor. All that happened before I got here so it’s easy to slag but my suspicions are that those issues are typical for many, if not most, nonprofits. As I said, this isn’t Blackbaud’s fault. We purchased a proprietary system in the first place and didn’t take care of it. We then moved to yet another proprietary system (Blackbaud) and paid the conversion costs. However, that was in 2003 and it’s arguable we didn’t have a choice. It’s clear now though that with the advent of SugarCRM, Compass.NET and Salesforce that there ARE alternatives out there now.

As always though, I’m glad to hear from you. You haven’t been around in a while. Glad to see you still read the blog!

]]> By: davidzeidman http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems/comment-page-1#comment-6325 davidzeidman Mon, 05 Mar 2007 09:55:27 +0000 http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems#comment-6325 I have read the comments and I cannot help but think that you are over simplifying what you see as a completely closed system supplied by Blackbaud. I am an independent software developer and technical fundraising consultant. I specialize in developing customizations with The Raiser's Edge and I do some system conversions from or to The Raiser's Edge. I am able to develop customizations, plug-ins and integrations with Raisers Edge just because is not a closed system. I use the API to develop plug-ins that integrate with other third party software. To name but a few: a legacy package, accounting software, web applications. Sure unless you own the VBA module you cannot use it but that does not stop you from integrating with other software or developing your own customization (for free). As for the conversion that you resented paying Blackbaud to do... I do not know the details but the consultants who do work on your system have no more tools than you or I do. They may have more knowledge but this information is available for general consumption (that's how I learnt). I am guessing that with a bit of perseverance you could have done the conversion yourself. There are also a many other non-Blackbaud consultants or people who work with The Raiser’s Edge out there who could have advised. It is very easy to blame Blackbaud for their lack of an open system but it is also very easy to be fooled into thinking that Blackbaud has to do everything and that you are unable to things yourself because of their "closed system". This simply is not true. David David Zeidman Zeidman Development http://www.zeidman.info I have read the comments and I cannot help but think that you are over simplifying what you see as a completely closed system supplied by Blackbaud.

I am an independent software developer and technical fundraising consultant. I specialize in developing customizations with The Raiser’s Edge and I do some system conversions from or to The Raiser’s Edge.

I am able to develop customizations, plug-ins and integrations with Raisers Edge just because is not a closed system. I use the API to develop plug-ins that integrate with other third party software. To name but a few: a legacy package, accounting software, web applications.

Sure unless you own the VBA module you cannot use it but that does not stop you from integrating with other software or developing your own customization (for free).

As for the conversion that you resented paying Blackbaud to do… I do not know the details but the consultants who do work on your system have no more tools than you or I do. They may have more knowledge but this information is available for general consumption (that’s how I learnt). I am guessing that with a bit of perseverance you could have done the conversion yourself. There are also a many other non-Blackbaud consultants or people who work with The Raiser’s Edge out there who could have advised.

It is very easy to blame Blackbaud for their lack of an open system but it is also very easy to be fooled into thinking that Blackbaud has to do everything and that you are unable to things yourself because of their “closed system”. This simply is not true.

David

David Zeidman
Zeidman Development
http://www.zeidman.info

]]> By: abenamer http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems/comment-page-1#comment-6140 abenamer Sat, 03 Mar 2007 19:57:28 +0000 http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems#comment-6140 Very true -- it's a very sad predicament for us. Yet, in a limited defense of Blackbaud's situation, I doubt it's very enjoyable for them to actually have to do these conversions. It's ugly money that we're paying and that they're receiving. Very true — it’s a very sad predicament for us. Yet, in a limited defense of Blackbaud’s situation, I doubt it’s very enjoyable for them to actually have to do these conversions. It’s ugly money that we’re paying and that they’re receiving.

]]> By: Michelle Murrain http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems/comment-page-1#comment-6046 Michelle Murrain Fri, 02 Mar 2007 22:14:21 +0000 http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/blackbaud-merry-go-round-and-the-cost-of-closed-systems#comment-6046 It's interesting - I looked at Shaun's post, and this comment jumped out at me: "No, Plugins do not use VBA functionality at all. Blackbaud licenses the embedded VBA programming from Microsoft for a fairly hefty fee, hence the reason we charge for it." I don't know whether $ to BB = $ to MS (I'd bet it's not that simple), but it's interesting to note that if you are on a MS platform, that makes creating open (free, documented) APIs that much harder. So it's a closed system built on top of a closed system. It’s interesting – I looked at Shaun’s post, and this comment jumped out at me: “No, Plugins do not use VBA functionality at all. Blackbaud licenses the embedded VBA programming from Microsoft for a fairly hefty fee, hence the reason we charge for it.”

I don’t know whether $ to BB = $ to MS (I’d bet it’s not that simple), but it’s interesting to note that if you are on a MS platform, that makes creating open (free, documented) APIs that much harder. So it’s a closed system built on top of a closed system.

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