BlueFire can be set up to automatically import transaction records into CCB and match them to existing donors. Here is how you setup the integration and how it works.
To setup the CCB integration visit the Organization > Add-Ons page and enable the CCB add-on. You’ll need your organization’s sub-domain and an API username and password (this is different from your normal CCB login, see directions here*). The API username that you setup will need permissions access to the following services:
- campus_list
- create_individual
- individual_search
- merged_individuals
- online_giving_insert_gift
- transaction_detail_type_list
Once you setup BlueFire with access to your CCB account, we recommend importing your Chart of Accounts (COA) by clicking the “Import COA as BlueFire Funds” button on the add-ons page. This will take your CCB COA and import them all as funds into BlueFire. Then, once the funds are created you can easily place them on your giving forms. To do so, go to your giving form and select the “Edit Funds” option in the Actions drop-down. As you type a fund name, you’ll see that it has auto-complete suggestions based on your newly imported funds.
Note that if you don’t use BlueFire fund names and numbers that match your COA, the transactions that BlueFire imports into CCB may not correctly match those which the donor selected. So be sure that if you make a change to your COA you also update the available funds to donors.
*Enter “BlueFire” for the organization name. All other fields under Primary Organization Contact Information are optional.
How it Works
Once the integration is setup and enabled, all future transactions are automatically imported into CCB every couple hours. There is nothing you have to do.
BlueFire automatically matches up gifts with CCB member profiles (a.k.a., “individuals”). It does this by using the information provided with the gift, such as billing name, email address and phone number.** If this information matches an existing CCB member, the gift is assigned to that member. If there is no match, BlueFire will create a new member profile and assign the gift to them. If a member profile that BlueFire has created is ever merged with another one, BlueFire will properly assign new transactions to the merged profile.
**Here are the details on how we match gifts to people, for those who are curious: We first look for an individual who has the same first name, last name and email address. If there are no matches, we next look for individuals who have the same first name, last name and phone number. Again, if there are no matches, we look for an individual with a matching first name, last name and street address. If we get this far without a match, we go ahead and create a new individual profile. Once we’ve made a match, we continue to use it for all future gifts that are made with the same billing information.
Importing Payments and Events
By default only gifts are imported into CCB. However, BlueFire can also be setup to import paid event registrations and payments. It is important that if this feature is enabled that any matching accounts from your COA are setup to be tax-deductible (or not), as appropriate.
For instance, if there is an upcoming event and registration payments are not tax-deductible, a new account should be created in your CCB COA. This new account should be created with the “Tax Deductible?” option unchecked. Then, within BlueFire, this new account’s number should be entered as the event’s fund number. This will ensure that event records are imported into each user’s CCB profile with the appropriate tax status.
Note About Duplicate Individuals
Some clients have noticed that BlueFire will sometimes create duplicate individuals in CCB when importing new gifts. This usually happens when BlueFire has no way to match the giver to existing individuals (e.g., a donor uses the mobile app to give and provides little to no additional identifiable data outside of a name). The best thing to do in this case is to use CCB’s profile merge feature. BlueFire regularly (once daily) gathers information on merged individuals and will properly assign future gifts to the newly merged CCB donor.
Note About Past Gifts
If there are gifts that were given before you setup the CCB integration, you will have to import those manually. You can do this by going to the Reporting > Transactions page and clicking “Import Into CCB” in the Actions drop-down for each one you wish to import. When a gift has been imported into CCB you’ll see the small CCB circle logo in the Misc column: 