February 2020 Release Notes

Automated workflows offer a great way to connect with the right donors at the right time. But what if you want a more personal approach? Sure, you can create tasks to make phone calls, but it would be great if there was a way to fully automate something really tangible, something to really meet donors (and future donors) where they live.

Like direct mail.

Yup, direct mail. Email is great, and phone calls are swell, but there's still no substitute for a well-written letter showing up in someone's mailbox. And now, you can make that happen automatically.

With Letters on Demand, sending a letter is just as easy as sending an automated email. Contacts in workflows can be sent letters when they meet specific criteria, like hitting life-to-date giving milestones. And when designing your letter templates, you'll even have the option to include a perforated page with a reply device.

Want to know more? Contact your Virtuous account rep to get started!

Now that the 2019 year-end statements have all been sent, it's time for the calls to start coming in.

"I don't remember getting my statement. Can you re-send it?"

"I think I misplaced my copy, can you send another one?"

Until now, generating a statement for a single Contact meant creating a specific Gift query. We decided to make things a little easier.

Now, just click on the three dots when viewing the Giving tab of a Contact record, and you'll see the ability to select "Annual Giving Statement."

This will bring up a new form, allowing you to generate a giving statement for JUST that Contact. Select the option you'd like to use (email or print), select the correct template, and then select the year for this statement. Virtuous will automatically collect all Gifts from that calendar year and generate (or email) that Contact's giving statement.

Give it a try!

We are always working to make Virtuous perform better than ever. And in this release, we've made a slight change designed to help Contact records load faster than before.

Now, instead of loading the "Givers near..." map by default, you'll see that it is located on a tab next to the Communication History, right on the main Overview tab of a Contact record. Want to see the map? Simple! It's just one click away!

One of the other things we are passionate about here at Virtuous is helping our users maintain clean, accurate data. One easy way to do that? Make sure email addresses and phone numbers are clearly labelled.

Now, when creating a new Contact, you'll see the option to set the email type and phone type. No more home phones masquerading as mobile phones!

Those of you who use Virtuous email may have noticed recently that we are trying to make it far more clear when email content has been changed and saved, but not published. Since only the published versions of emails are sent, particularly via Virtuous Automation, it's important to have clear indicators when email content is not published. 

In this release, we are adding a warning when in the email editor that email content has not been published. And when sending test emails, emails that have at least one published version and also contain unpublished changes will include a red warning banner.

For more on publishing emails, check out our support article on the topic.

This one goes out to all of the users who have requested it: you can now create recurring tasks from the Tasks tab of a Contact record!

No more being forced to switch to the Tasks screen or the Dashboard for these instances...just go ahead and set up your monthly major donor call right there on the Contact record.

As with every release, this month's update also includes a number of other fixes, tweaks, minor modifications, and assorted nudges. Among this month's assorted fixes:

And that's the list! As always, if you have any questions about these or other features, feel free to contact our team using the support widget in Virtuous, or drop us a line at support@virtuoussoftware.com.