Data Shuttle

[Lissa Banks]

I'd like to know what other WhippleHill/Blackbaud schools' experience has been in introducing Infoshap's Data Shuttle.  We are currently using Education Edge and are are considering moving to WhippleHill's academic products and believe that key to this would be integrating the two.  We are getting quite a bit of resistance from our IT department.  They feel that a good deal of data scrubbing will be necessary even if we use the Data Shuttle.

 

What's your experience, has it been worth it?

[Jed Dioguardi]

I don't believe Infosnap has a formal Data Shuttle for Education Edge. They do for Raiser's Edge. We use use a beta product from Infosnap to shuttle our biographical data from Education Edge as well as WH's data manager capabilities to bring in Academic Groups data. We also currently use Infosnap's online admissions' inquiry and application and are able to bring the data into Education Edge. We are caught in a world where Blackbaud does not offer a sophisticated enough web product for our needs and WH does not have the database capability we are looking for.

[Chris Hall]

Jed,

We are in the very same position. Frustration doesn't even begin to describe where we are at this point. Glad to know we aren't alone.

Thanks for the comment,
Chris

[Lissa Banks]

Thank you both for your comments. I have a call scheduled with Infosnap for tomorrow. Any questions you wish you'd asked?

[Chris Hall]

Well, first - will it work? You need to be sure it bi-directional. Otherwise, it really is worthless. Get details on how it will be set up, the time-frame, and cost. We have dropped it altogether and cut our losses. It just wasn't worth trying to get this thing to work.

Best of luck.

[Lissa Banks]

I just had a call with Infosnap. Looks like DS 2 is the one that most folks use and that DS 3 is being touted as the best and the brightest, doing the talking to both databases, but is still being heavily monitored by Infosnap. Any comments from DS 3 users?

[Jed Dioguardi]

Is there a DS3 for Education Edge or only Raiser's Edge?

[Lissa Banks]

Apparently not. From our conversation, it might be down the road, but right now there is not. Initial upload must be manual.

[Ed Patterson]

We are at the same point. We currently have EE and RE and our Admissions office is beginning to use Admissions Office inside EE.

We are considering purchasing the DS 3 to make all of our website data update our RE database so that our Development office has accurate records based on what any constituent enters onto the website. BUT we are concerned because our EE and RE are about to be connected to share biographical data... thus any data coming into the website would make it into the EE database during the scheduled sync between EE and RE

[Susan Morgan]

Ed,
With DS 2, this is how we are set-up:

We've had EE and RE integrated for several years, and now with WH data to keep up-to-date, the data flows from profile changes to RE and then to EE records that are integrated.

We are hoping the to see the DS 3 help us further by updating WH data that changes via online Applications and Registration using Infosnap. Further, the DS 3 I'm told will be able to create user profiles for the new students and families!
BTW: the recommendation from BB is to automate the synchronization of records every 15 minutes. The DS 2 is manual but is generally run daily.

[Ed Patterson]

Thanks Susan,
This is helpful!