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Connect your channels

Once your history is in, the next job is keeping it current without a monthly export ritual.

Two ways a channel reaches Relae

Section titled “Two ways a channel reaches Relae”

Connected. You authorise Relae once and orders sync on demand. Ticketing works this way.

Imported. You drag the platform’s export in. Relae remembers the layout, so the second time is much quicker than the first. Most giving portals work this way, because they do not offer a way in.

Neither is better for your data. A connected channel saves you the export step.

Setting up a connected channel

Section titled “Setting up a connected channel”

You will need an access credential from the platform, created in its own settings and pasted into Relae. Credentials are stored encrypted and are never displayed again after you save them.

Create a credential scoped to reading orders where the platform allows it. Relae never needs to write to your ticketing system.

Setting up an imported channel

Section titled “Setting up an imported channel”

Nothing to set up. Run the export, drag the file in, confirm the reading once. The next export from the same platform maps itself.

Worth doing at a rhythm you will keep. Monthly is enough for most shops. If receipting matters to you, do it before your annual receipting run rather than in January.

Cheques and cash

Section titled “Cheques and cash”

Cheques and cash arrive as paper and get keyed in. Use batch entry rather than adding gifts one at a time: enter the stack, tie the total out against your deposit slip, then post the batch.

Tying out against the slip catches transposed digits at the point where they are easy to fix.

Reading in an existing CRM

Section titled “Reading in an existing CRM”

If you keep a CRM, it can be read in as another channel. Contacts and gifts come into the same pipeline as everything else.

Nothing flows back automatically. Data returns to your CRM through an export you run, in the format your CRM imports. You decide when, and you can read the file before it goes anywhere.

Which channel a gift came through is worth keeping

Section titled “Which channel a gift came through is worth keeping”

Relae records the channel on every gift. That is what lets you see that your gala attracts new donors who never give again, while your monthly programme holds people for years. Both are useful and they are different jobs.

Next

Section titled “Next”