1. College ICT CommitteeAn Overview of DARS Stewart Watson 29th April 2008 Copy for distribution

2. Topics • What is DARS • Strategic Aims • Project Objectives • A quick look (screenshots) • The technology stack • Deployment and connectivity • Current project status • Any questions

3. What is DARS • Development and Alumni Relations System • Contact/Constituent Relationship Management • One repository of data • Open areas and secure control • Process focused

4. Strategic Aims • Support the Campaign of Campaigns • Sharing and collaboration • Secure when needed • Support common process and best practice • Economies of scale

5. Project Objectives • Implement core functionality first • Support internal processes and users • Establish a stable baseline • Focus on process and data • Work with Blackbaud as a partner (a significant internal team) • Establish training and support for the future

6. User Interface - contacts

7. Relationship Tree

8. Managing Prospect Workflow

9. Event Management

10. The Technology stack • Blackbaud have built a 3 layer architecture: • Role/Process focussed modular top layer • Open Standards - Web service middle layer • Microsoft .Net 2 / SQL Server foundations • Smart Client (richer than browser) – over a web connection • ‘Relatively’ easy to build new modules – this doesn’t mean cheap.

11. Business and IT Architecture

12. Deployment and Connectivity

13. Current Project Status We are here

14. Any Questions? #1 • Is it intended for the College systems to parallel run? • No – the aim is for a single Collegiate wide system – though this may take some years to arrive at. • System performance may be a concern • this has been seen in RE7? Testing will be key in the assessment phase – Blackbaud have tested the product at Microsoft Labs (paper attached) • Isn’t a single system open to abuse – i.e. poaching of contacts? • This is a common concern. The relationship management scheme should manage prospect contact. Governance will be in place – but it requires Sharing, Collaboration and above all TRUST • How does the solution deploy? • Initially the connection is via a browser which downloads the Smart Client. This then updates itself – Blackbaud tell us that it doesn’t need admin rights to deploy or upgrade. • Does the web portal (Net Community) meet Accessibility Guidelines. • There is a requirement to – but we will check this. • How many Colleges are ‘signed up’. • We have 5 Colleges involved in the Assessment Phase (Balliol, LMH, Magdalen, St John’s and St Peter’s) – with a further 12 saying that all things considered (i.e. mainly answering concerns over data security) they would expect to move during the main project roll-out, planned for calendar year 2009 at present. We have 5 who are not keen or too busy to consider at the moment – the remainder are still to be canvassed fully – though indications from previous communications are that at least half would fall into the positive camp.

15. Any Questions? #2 • Who does the migration effort? • The project will pay for the migration effort from internal staff or Blackbaud, some effort from college on data testing and advice • A number of College systems feed off their current databases – how would we replicate this in BBEC. • BBEC uses a web services model – the connection would generally change from ODBC to web services. This is an issue for migration which will need addressing. • Can DARS hold the current College focussed local Net Community data • Yes – we are told that is the case – essentially branding and content per group – but yet to see it demonstrated – there is an Assessment Phase workshop on the ‘online solution’. • Won’t current RE using Colleges get this product at their next major upgrade? • No. BBEC is an Enterprise solution. RE 8 will use the same platform (Microsoft) and some of the modules may have similarities but BBEC has been designed for large organisations – the needs of smaller units require a different approach (or so Blackbaud say). • Advice to the project– be aware – the Colleges you talk to may not properly understand the issues of moving their data – for example connectivity from other systems (e.g. data feeds to web pages).