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DataSync - explicit gift sync date range

This is a message for organizations that provide DataSync files to their staff.  A breaking change will be coming in the next beta version for DataSync files to be imported.  Up until now, TntConnect has been guessing at the date range to sync gifts with based on what it finds in the [GIFTS] section.  This has caused some issues for some users, and the worst kind of issue (data loss).  For a recent example, check out this forum post:  Upload Gift info removed.

The next beta version of TntConnect will require two entries added to the new [FILE] section if the [GIFTS] section is also included.  These entries will allow TntConnect to no longer guess at the date range used to sync gifts.  By putting these entries into the [FILE] section, you're indicating that the [GIFTS] section contains ALL the gifts for this user between those two dates.

Here's that those entries will look like:

[ORGANIZATION]
Name=Sample Organization
Abbreviation=SampleOrg
WebLogo-JPEG-470x120=http://download.tntware.com/ccc/SampleWebLogo.jpg
BannerAdUrl-468x60=http://download.tntware.com/ccc/SampleAdBanner.htm
Code=Sample-Organization-USA
DefaultCurrencyCode=USD

[FILE]
GiftsDateFrom=2018-12-01
GiftsDateTo=2018-12-31

In this example above, the GiftsDateFrom and GiftsDateTo entries indicate that the [GIFTS] section contain all gifts for this user in the month of December 2018.

--Troy

P.S.  This change was released as of TntConnect 3.5.15.   It will warn about guessing the date range until there are gifts on or after April 15, 2019.  If there are gifts on or after April 15, it will instead report an error.

 

Posted 22 Feb 2019 12:43 PM by Troy Wolbrink

Comments

Bob Mac Leod wrote re: DataSync - explicit gift sync date range
on 21 Feb 2019 9:09 PM

What are the ramifications of this from the organization perspective? If the regular sync file [end date] is being automatically generated every day, when does the organization manually update the begin date?

Troy Wolbrink wrote re: DataSync - explicit gift sync date range
on 21 Feb 2019 9:16 PM

The 'begin date' indicates how far back the [GIFTS] section (in this file) contains knowledge of (all) gifts for this user.

Bob Mac Leod wrote re: DataSync - explicit gift sync date range
on 21 Feb 2019 9:27 PM

Does the organization manually update that date on some regular cycle? Or does it advance forward automatically like the end date does?

Troy Wolbrink wrote re: DataSync - explicit gift sync date range
on 21 Feb 2019 9:48 PM

Let's say the organization always provides "the last 4 weeks" of donations in their data sync file.  And let's say they email this file every week.  In this case both the GiftSyncBegin and GiftSyncEnd will increment by 7 days with each weekly email.

I really can't say how often the organization changes either GiftSyncBegin and GiftSyncEnd unless i know how often they change the range of gifts within each file.  These entries tell TntConnect the exact sync range for gifts in *this* file so it doesn't have go guess.

Troy Wolbrink wrote re: DataSync - explicit gift sync date range
on 21 Feb 2019 10:16 PM

I made a slight change to the particulars.  Instead of being added to the [ORGANIZATION] section, a new [FILE] section will be used, and the entries will be called GiftsDateFrom and GiftsDateTo.  I've edited the original post to reflect this.

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