The Salsa Engagement Platform joins together the power of Salsa CRM, a donor management database tool, with the versatility of Engage, our online engagement tool for developing email marketing and online fundraising forms. We are thrilled to help you with your transition to both products. This guide is designed to clear up some questions of the onboarding and data migration/conversion process. Further information about your conversion can be found here.
Aren't they the same system?
Customers switching from Salsa Classic to Salsa CRM are undertaking a journey to a totally different software system. Salsa CRM is not simply a "re-skin" of Salsa Classic. It's better.
What's the difference between CRM and Engage?
Salsa CRM is the hub for all your supporter data. Engage is just one fundraising channel, accomplishing supporter communications, email marketing, and (primarily) online fundraising through credit card transactions. All that information syncs to Salsa CRM. All your fundraising channels should funnel into Salsa CRM eventually, and all your development decisions should be based on CRM reporting.
Why does it take so long to get CRM running? Can I begin with Engage right away?
Typically, it may take a number of weeks to convert Classic data to Salsa CRM, depending on the complexity of the source material. Salsa Engage can be provisioned and useable within days. Once your Engage account is provisioned, design and publish Sign-up Forms, Targeted Actions, or Petitions immediately. Once your Merchant Services account is finalized, create and publish your Fundraising, Event, or Peer-to-Peer Forms.
Can I convert my Membership data into CRM?
Optional CRM modules like Membership are often demonstrated in the sales process. However, at this time there is no direct data conversion of historical information into these modules. Implementing these modules after conversion is favored, once the core functionality is adopted.
Why are there so many duplicates in my data?
When it comes to managing data of any kind, the quality of output is generally determined by the quality of the input. We undertake the project to export the data from Classic and import it to Salsa CRM. Unfortunately, we cannot validate the data quality as part of this process. We migrate the information as-is.
How long is Classic going to be available to me?
Once you've accepted the data conversion and signed off on the process, you have 90 days to access Classic. After that time, the Classic database will be retired permanently.
Why was my foundation imported with the first name: Phillips and last name: Foundation?
Constituents in Salsa CRM are defined as individuals or organizations with whom you interact. Salsa Classic does not have the concept of organization records. We recommend that these records should be pulled from your individual data and put into a separate file for import as an organization. With Salsa CRM, you can import the organization record, and import individuals related to that organization, then link the two manually after import with a defined Relationship (for example, Employee and Employer).
My supporters only have a first name. CRM can't import them?
Salsa CRM requires that individual records contain a first and last name, as well as the flag for the "Individual" Constituent Type. Classic did not require first and last names. Therefore your data may be incomplete.
It is not recommended to "fudge" first or last names (i.e., "Unknown" for the first or last name) for records that do not contain one or the other, nor is it recommended to attempt to import them directly into Salsa CRM. First and last names are not required in Salsa Engage, but an email address is required.
Encourage supporters to update information, by creating an email blast which points to a special sign-up form. Supporters who update full names would then sync to CRM.
My Event in Engage puts my ticket payments into Salsa CRM as "donations" and they're not. Can you change that?
As a 501(c)(3) organization, any money given to you, unless it is in exchange for goods and services, is fully tax-deductible to the extent of the law. More importantly than what we call the transaction is whether the transaction had any portion of it tax-deductible or not and to which financial income account you need to designate it.
Every Event in Engage can be configured with what part of the ticket sale is tax-deductible (if any) and to which Fund/Campaign/Appeal to which you need to direct that record (if you also integrate with Salsa CRM). As a refresher for our definitions, a Fund designates where the money is to be used by your organization, i.e., Is it a restricted or unrestricted account?
What do I do with donations where the supporter was deleted?
In Classic, donations, where the supporter was deleted, were retained along with other donations. Your data may contain records that don't tie to a constituent. Make sure you discuss with your conversion specialist on how to handle these. Would you want them tied to an Anonymous record? Should they just not be imported at all?
Can I convert my email and form templates?
Form templates and email templates are not simply switched over to Engage, nor are historically sent emails transferred to be archived in Salsa CRM or Engage. Advocacy action history is not in itself retained, but segmenting those respondents prior to conversion is preferable, as Groups.
Can I convert my email and activity history?
Salsa CRM relies on Groups to segment constituent data. If you want to retain segmentation data, create your Classic groups or tags before you migrate. All tags will be converted to Groups in Salsa CRM.
Can I use my existing email templates or Activity forms in Engage?
The forms cannot simply be copied and pasted into Engage. Recreate -- or even reenvision -- email templates, targeted actions, donation forms or fundraising pages using Engage's easy-to-use Visual Editor, which is much more intuitive than Classic.
Can I move my existing recurring donors to Engage?
We can, in most circumstances, migrate recurring donors to Salsa CRM (not to Engage) and securely retain that giving history and credit card information. The caveat is that your previous merchant processor may not be inclined to share the information with us. It is a lengthy, bureaucratic process, with many checks and balances built-in to ensure PCI compliance and data integrity. Therefore, we can only do this once your data conversion is complete and your Salsa CRM implementation is "live". We do not recommend this course of action if you have less than 100 recurring donors.
How do I subscribe supporters to just one Message Topic?
Message Topics are set up by campaign managers to categorize their communications to supporters (for example, General, Fundraising, etc.). Engage automatically opts all new supporters into all Message Topics. There is no choice to be made. Supporters manage whether they wish to continue to receive your Message Topics or whether they wish to receive any emails at all from you from a link at the end of every email communication generated from Engage. They receive every kind of email you generate unless they are in a Group that is excluded from that mailing or they have already updated their preferences to exclude themselves from that type of mailing AND your email configuration respects that. Whether someone is subscribed to receive ANY email from you is independent of the message topics they wish to receive.