How Can I Sync Projects with RaiseDonors?

When accepting online donations, tracking gift designations is crucial for capturing your donors' intent, understanding their interests, and making sure that funds are allocated correctly for accounting purposes(which of these is more important likely depends on your role). When integrating with RaiseDonors, efficient designation tracking will require keeping up with both your funds in RaiseDonors and your projects in Virtuous, and making sure the two stay in sync.

Or you could let our Virtuous Sync integration do that for you.

Yep, as they say, "there's an app for that."

Configuring the Sync

First, log in to your RaiseDonors account. Then, click on the Settings icon in the upper right and select "Manage Account." Then, on the settings screen, select "Integrations" from the navigation menu on the left.

There, you'll see all of the available integration options. Scroll down and you'll see the Virtuous Sync listed.

NOTE: The Virtuous Sync is separate from the regular Virtuous integration. You can choose to use both, or just use the existing Virtuous integration as-is.

Click on the integration icon to configure the sync. The first step will ask for user credentials in order to authorize the sync.

We recommend creating a new user account in Virtuous that is dedicated for the sync, as opposed to using the credentials of an existing user. This way, the sync will not be interrupted if a user changes their password. You can follow the steps in this article to add a Virtuous user. Click "Authorize" to save the credentials and continue with setup. Ensure the user does not have two factor authentication enabled.

On the next step, you will need to check the box next to "Enable RaiseDonors to sync Funds to Virtuous Projects from this moment forward" in order to activate the sync. The sync will not be active until you check the box and click "Update Settings," allowing time for you to review your funds and projects before activating.

If you do choose to run an initial import, any Projects in Virtuous (that are set to the correct settings) that do not have a matching Fund in RaiseDonors will get imported into RaiseDonors.

If you do not run an initial import, everything will remain the same between platforms. All Funds in RaiseDonors will match to existing Projects in Virtuous if they are matched by Fund Code - Project Code. Any existing Projects in Virtuous that do not match with an existing Fund in RaiseDonors will not get imported into RaiseDonors and the sync will only run on new Projects/Funds created.

When you return to the main integrations page, you should now see that the Virtuous Sync is active:

How Does the Sync Work?

The Virtuous sync is a two-way sync, allowing data to flow seamlessly between platforms to make sure your data is consistent across both systems. This means that when a new fund is added in RaiseDonors, the corresponding project will automatically be created in Virtuous, and a new Virtuous project will trigger the creating of a corresponding fund in RaiseDonors. Once created, updates will also be synced between platforms.

There are some specific business rules governing which projects and funds are synced. Specifically, the sync will map data as follows:

When a fund is created in RaiseDonors, it will only be synced with Virtuous if the fund is active. You can set the active status on a fund from the Fund create or edit screen:

Projects created in Virtuous will only be synced to RaiseDonors if the "Active," "Public," and "Available Online" flags are all set to TRUE. In order for a Project to sync, the option to "Enable Syncing via Webhooks" must also be set to TRUE (this is set as TRUE by default when creating a new Project). You can edit these values from the Project create or edit view:

As noted above, the Online Display Name for Virtuous projects will be used as the Fund Name in RaiseDonors. When the Virtuous Sync creates a new project, the Project Name and Online Display Name will both be populated using the Fund Name. You can see or edit the Online Display name from the Project create or edit view:

Stopping the Sync

If at any point you want to stop syncing data, navigate to the Integrations page, click on the Virtuous Sync icon, and then look for the big, red "Turn Off Sync" button.