We don't use iModules, but we do have an External Data Interface tool that we use for online gifts/memberships and other processes that match external data to Advance.
We use a series of matching criteria, with respective confidence scores. In decreasing order of confidence:
* Advance ID (some files include the Advance ID for some or all records, in which case the matching is considered finished and no other criteria are applied)
* Alternate ID recorded in Advance (we have alternate IDs from our primary Online Giving platform in Advance, and, again, a match on such an ID means that the matching is considered finished)
* Last Name and Email Address
* Last Name and Telephone Number
* Last Name and Address (using 5-digit zip code)
* Soundex of Last Name, First Initial, 5-digit zip code
Since we intend to have records for both spouses and spouses are likely to share characteristics (have the same last name and address, for example), we add a fractional score based on the first name to prioritize one spouse over the other when we're proposing the "best" match. So, for example, the score for one spouse may be 60.75 and the other 60 for a last-name-and-address match, since one spouse also matches on first name (there are three levels of first name matching, from an exact match to first-initial-only).
The expectation is that the staff member processing a file (at the caging vendor, generally) will review all the matches other than matches on an Advance ID. The review interface displays the name and contact information from the input record, and the corresponding information from the proposed match in Advance (including all rows from the name, address, email address, and phone number tables). Of course, we encourage especially close attention to the lower-scored matches. If the reviewer rejects the highest-scored match, they have the option of reviewing any alternate proposed matches and selecting one of them, or of creating a new entity (the process will have automatically created new entities for any records for which no matches were identified; having the process create new entities allows it to create the gift or membership transactions, which are also the part of the process).
(It's outside the scope of this question, but the process that Mark describes at Oregon has a variant that matches students to Advance, where the student ID is considered definitive, and also a variant that matches current parents to Advance. One of the nice enhancements to the parent process is that it also uses the ID of the associated student-there may be lots of John Smiths in the database, but if you have a John Smiths who is linked as the parent of a student with student ID 12345678, that's a pretty strong match!)
My US$0.02 worth; the usual disclaimers apply.
Good luck!
Alan
Alan S. Hejnal
Data Quality Manager
Smithsonian Institution - Office of Advancement
600 Maryland Avenue SW, Suite 600E
P.O. Box 37012, MRC 527
Washington, DC 20013-7012
*: 202-633-8754 | *:
HejnalA@si.edu<mailto:
HejnalA@si.edu>
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From: Advancement Services Discussion List <
FUNDSVCS@LISTSERV.FUNDSVCS.ORG> On Behalf Of Mark Bolme
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2019 5:50 PM
To:
FUNDSVCS@LISTSERV.FUNDSVCS.ORG
Subject: Re: [FUNDSVCS] Automatic process for importing iModules gifts into the database?
We match on
Name and constituent id
Name and email
Name and address
Name and phone
First Name and address on female
Any doubtfuls go into manual review. The last two matches are automatically doubtful, but there are other reasons to be doubtful (matches two or more entities, middle initial or suffix mismatch, etc.)
All of this is based on a configurable loader that Alan Hejnal, Jeff Wilson, and I developed here at UO. All our autoloading jobs go through this loader. For those interested, I'm going to work on making the loader database-independent in the near future.
Overall, our experience with iModules as a data source has been ... interesting.
Mark
Mark W. Bolme
University of Oregon Foundation
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From: Advancement Services Discussion List [mailto:
FUNDSVCS@LISTSERV.FUNDSVCS.ORG] On Behalf Of Halverson, Michael
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2019 2:04 PM
To:
FUNDSVCS@LISTSERV.FUNDSVCS.ORG<mailto:
FUNDSVCS@LISTSERV.FUNDSVCS.ORG>
Subject: [FUNDSVCS] Automatic process for importing iModules gifts into the database?
Hello, all -
May I ask if any of you have developed a way to automatically import iModules gifts into your department's database? If so, would you be willing to share any details with me (e.g. the logic your import process uses to match the iModules gifts with records in your database)?
We're in the process of developing our own import process, and thought it would be helpful to cross reference our matching logic with the logic used at other institutions.
Thanks,
Michael Halverson, Ed.D.
Senior Director of Advancement Services
Loyola University Chicago
T. 312-915-7283 | C. 320-363-4987<tel:320-363-4987>
mhalverson@luc.edu<mailto:
mhalverson@luc.edu> |
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