Altru Monthly Roundup – May 2011

Altru Updates
Did you get a chance to check out the latest patch release information?  On Saturday, May 14 (we cleverly avoided doing this on Friday the 13^th), patch 19 was applied to Altru databases. We resolved a couple of pesky bugs in this release. Keep an eye on your inbox for detailed information about future releases.

Altru Academy
Be sure to sign up for the June Altru Miniseries for your chance to take part in live training. We’ll be covering Appeal Mailings, Acknowledgements, and Query Basics, and we’ll round the month out with a BYOQ party-bring your own query for the last session of the month and we’ll build it together!  Sign up today to reserve your spot; then send any questions and submit your query for the BYOQ to Dorothy McIver at dorothy.mciver@blackbaud.com.

Video of the Month
Got any new Altru users at your organization?  They can check out Welcome to Altru, a new video that gives a brief introduction to navigating and using Altru.

In the News
The American Association of Museums Annual Meeting and Museum Expo was held in Houston from May 22-25. Altru took center stage as Blackbaud representatives and AAM members discussed how the program assists arts and cultural organizations in achieving their goals. Couldn’t head to Houston to participate first hand? Read an article about the expo in the Blackbaud Press Room. 

Word on the Street
One of the newest additions out on Idea Bank is a request to allow users to drag and drop items from a list when building query filters, rather than selecting them one by one. This would mean that when you create a filter using a “one of” operator, you would not need to search for each item you want included; instead, you could choose it from a list and drag and drop it into your filter. Would that help you? Let your voice be heard by casting votes and submitting ideas on Idea Bank!

MVP Customer Profile
Gull Wings Children’s Museum in Oxnard, CA is our Customer of the Month! Ventura County’s only children’s museum, Gull Wings hosts 30,000 visitors every year but touches even more young minds through its extensive community involvement. The museum’s educational exhibits encourage children to discover the world around them. Currently at Gull Wings, children can learn about fossils and extinct ecosystems, coastal conservation, space travel, DNA and the microscopic world, the rainforest, and much more! Check out Gull Wings’ website for more information, and if you’re in or around Oxnard, stop in and say hello!