So I work for a non-profit org using A Raiser's Edge database-(Which holds our constituent and fundraising information)
At it's root it's a MSSQL 2000 database.
I'd like to be able to integrate a Drupal site and information from our Database. As a custom web solution that could be above and beyond.
I'd like to be able to use the API that we were gouged for (Yup you have to purchase it separately)-
Politically around here the database is not going away any time soon.
Blackbaud (makers of The Raiser's Edge and other expensive nonprofit software) is a Microsoft company--I'm getting depressed reading their documentation--
Info from the docs:
API follows the guidelines of Microsoft’s Component Object Model (COM). Therefore, you may use it from any COM-enabled programming environment, including Microsoft’s Visual Basic, Visual C++, and Visual Basic for Applications. We wrote most of the examples included in this help file using VBA.
So the API is out, Yes?
I could directly access the database--but that's a pretty ugly solution.
How about building a web service? Getting some XML Goodness going?
Anyone with experience along these lines out there?
Thanks Loads!
Comments
our organization uses
our organization uses Raiser's Edge as well and boy do i hate it.
I will be eaagerly monitoring this discussion as i am very interested in the same solution.
Sometimes something interesting appears on http://litwol.com
What about
using COM from PHP (on Windows I presume):
http://php.net/manual/en/ref.com.php
I've never used PHP for that kind of stuff though - or COM at all for that matter so I have no idea how well it would work. But I do know that Python programmers can do just about everything with their win32/COM extensions - I'm just figuring that PHP has similar capabilities.
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Anton
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No server set up yet--- But
No server set up yet--- But would prefer a LAMP stack just so things would play the nicest there--We're currently windows-- and am trying to change for Drupal
i am running windows +
i am running windows + apache + mysql 5.0 and php 5. all runs very well and very stable.
Sometimes something interesting appears on http://litwol.com
If you really want to
run Drupal on Linux (and who wouldn't? hehe) and use webservices to access this other app, then assuming it doesn't have a web services interface available you'll need to create one in your preferred Windows COM -> web services programming language/platform.
Options:
a) if the other app has a web services interface - use that from PHP in a custom Drupal module.
b) if it doesn't and you still want to use web services, you'd need to write that bridge plus your Drupal module.
c) access the MS SQL database directly from your Drupal module (ie going outside the Drupal database layer)
or probably the most economically viable:
d) suck it up and run Drupal on Windows (you still get to use Apache if you want) then write your Drupal module using the PHP COM extensions.
I really don't think option b is going to make much business sense though, unless you could turn that bridge into a commercial product (you'd probably be kidding yourself). Option c would mean going outside published APIs with all that that entails. I think options a and d are probably your best bets and option a might not even exist anyway.
But I'm only making wild guesses - take it with a grain of salt :)
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Grain of salt not
Grain of salt not necessary-- You sound right on the money there.
a) Yes it does-- But the Web services come with their other product, "NetCommunity" which isn't flexible, and sucks as a CMS.
b) Yup. The thing is, to make the same thing happen using their (expensive) CMS there is probably an equal develoment time.
c) Yup. The problem comes when they update their database, the schema changes. BOOO.
d) Yup. It sounds great, I've shyed away from that. I've heard it's possible, I was afraid of that customization, I guess. I didn't know what was involved with making IIS, MYSQL, PHP and Drupal all play nice. My Drupal experience has all been LAMP of one flavor or another.
I'm not sure I would be kidding myself about a commercial application. (Though we are a 501 (c) 3 We'd have to work something out there.) I think there are a lot of unhappy NetCommunity users finding no answers in Convio or other web solutions.
I'd be in favor of contributing it back-- But only the people who've shelled out for the API/VBA module with Raiser's Edge would be able to help or use it.
WAMP vs IIS
While Drupal can be run on IIS, apparently (I've never tried it) there are some headaches/limitations that need to be worked around. But people do that so it is possible.
But Drupal generally runs better on Apache, and the community is better placed for helping you on Apache. Apache 2.x on Windows works fine and all the functionality from Linux is pretty much there - the main thing you will miss though is not being able to just apt-get (or whatever) any security patches along with the rest of the OS. Generally with Apache on Windows you're in charge of tracking updates and patching it yourself. This is probably the main advantage IIS has over Apache from a sysadmins point of view.
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Anton
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Anton
database compatability for Raiser's Edge
We offer a middleware solution called My Data Mover www.mydatamover.com that would work quite nicely for you. Check out the website for more information or contact me directly. We are a group of Raiser's Edge experts and write software to solve these types of problems.
Glad you're here!
Glad you're here.
As an expert. How do you think it should be done?
Custom RE Plugin?
API with PHP on windows?
A .NET web service that plays with Drupal and RE?
Drupal Workflows to do DB updates from the website?
Questions, comments, Smart Remarks?
Actual experience with Drupal / RE ?
John,
I'd love to find out more if you have hands-on experience or actual sites you can show me that have a Drupal-driven site and it downloads transactions to RE. I have a client interested in doing this and evaluating the pros and cons of all the options. Drupal is being discussed as an option but I need to see it in action, including the backend integration process, before I can recommend it to her.
If you can show me some sites, I'd love to speak with you in greater detail about your work.
Founder, Cygnet Consulting Group
www.cygnetgroup.com
Founder, Cygnet Consulting Group
www.cygnetgroup.com
Any more updates on this?
I also work for a charity with a Raiser's Edge CRM politically in place and it looks increasingly like something might happen with Drupal some time soon so I would also be VERY interested to hear of anyone who has direct experience of how easy this is to do and whether there are any catches, on a Windows install of Apache?
CHRIS WELLS
-------------------------------------------------------
blog http://chriswells.me.uk | twitter @djwesto | folio: www.behance.net/chriswells
linkedin: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/chrisdwells
One more vote
I would also love to hear of any live sites/organizations with a large online property in Drupal connected to Raiser's Edge. Our org is quite large, so we'd need some solid working examples to move forward (I really want to move forward).
Netcommunities in iFrame
It's a bit smoke and mirrors but this site (running on Drupal 7) processes registrations via NetCommunities which in turn connects to Raiser's Edge:
http://www.acevofutureleaders.org.uk/content/book-now
It's done using an iFrame which is truely, truely shameful but it kinda works... Of course, this still requires paying for NetCommunities...
That is a pretty "ghetto"
That is a pretty "ghetto" approach with the iFrame, but it appears to work. Having to pay for Netcommunities to embed it into a Drupal site is pretty painful as well.
I wrote a pretty proprietary app that formats Webform submissions from the database into CSV files that are friendly to RE imports. Not totally automated, but it's an approach. The catch with RE default importing is that it's super strict and doesn't detect duplicate records to update them. You need a RE plugin called Import-O-Matic to do that, which runs around $8,000 with a 1.4k yearly fee.
You could get CSV's into good formats using CCK forms and Views Bonus Pack @ http://drupal.org/project/views_bonus instead of my approach too (which is a lot better on the Drupal side).
http://www.vilepickle.com
Also, it seems like until RE
Also, it seems like until RE opens up their API (it costs $15,000 for an API license, or it's free for NetCommunity users) there won't be a whole lot of open source automated integration.
http://www.vilepickle.com
Very interested in any sort
Very interested in any sort of Drupal - RE integration.
http://www.vilepickle.com
Very interested too
I too would be very interested to hear of any success anyone has had in integrating Drupal and Raiser's Edge in any way. This would be very useful to know of for an upcoming project.
The most integrated I've
The most integrated I've gotten is writing an application that exports Drupal data into a static-column CSV file. We then use the Import-O-Matic RE plugin (http://omaticsoftware.com/) to import these files with import profiles we create. The base RE import is awful and does not do duplicate searching, but that plugin does. The catch is it costs thousands of dollars (doesn't everything with RE?).
Currently in the middle of a project to integrate Drupal-generated data to RE again with a more robust solution. Our thoughts are that Drupal can export the needed data to JSON and the intermediary application can generate the correct import files using it instead of reading Drupal's database directly. This is of course not fully automated (requires an import into RE) but getting fully automated with RE involves buying their API for $15,000 and working with it, and it's relatively unknown.
http://www.vilepickle.com
Thanks for the info
In a previous project we have gone down the route of exporting data into a csv and then the upload of this data to RE has been a manual process. This was fine for that particular instance but now we are needing a more automated process.
Thanks for the info about the Import-O-Matic RE plugin, I'll take a look at this, this could be helpful.
Good luck with the current project and please update us on how you progress with this solution.
CiviCRM integrates with Drupal, WP and Joomla
I don't know why anyone would use RE anymore.
CiviCRM is made for non-profits and is open souce and free. It has e-blast, e-vite, donation, and other modules that work seamless with a drupal CMS.
civicrm.org
Some of our organizations our
Some of our organizations our so entrenched that it's pretty much out of the question to switch CRMs right now. At least that's what it's like when I bring it up. Plus, then I look like a crazy person.
http://www.vilepickle.com
Down here in the dungeon as I am...
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- Chris
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Drupal 8 is great.
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I didn't realize that,
I didn't realize that, actually!
Raiser's Edge _should_ be deprecated, but alas it is not.
As I don't have an immediate need for further integration since my organization used another method (involving Drupal's fun JSON exporting capabilities, Ruby, and a third party RE plugin), I will leave posting elsewhere to someone else for now.
http://www.vilepickle.com
I'm in the same situation. I
I'm in the same situation. I want to integrate a web application with RE. I like to allow our constituent/staff users to update their profile, query data from the database, and running some report/export. I couldn't any documentation, tutorial, or information on Blackbaud's site.