Defeating Double Data Entry in Not-for-Profit Organizations
Over the last few years not-for-profit and membership agencies have become more tech savvy and have been moving services to their Web sites. These Web sites often include a membership area that is password protected and a membership directory all entered by office staff into the office then transferred to the Web site.
Everything works well for an organization that maintains a database independent of their Web site as long as members cannot edit their own information on the Web site. All this works fine for a couple years until the office staff realizes that members could log in on the Web site and change their passwords and even update their directory listings. The minute that functionality is put on the wish list, the old model of editing the database in the office and uploading becomes increasingly impractical.
These questions need to be answered:
- What happens to the offline database when a member changes their information on the Web site?
- Does this mean I first need to download my database, then make changes, and finally upload it every time I want to edit something?
There are other alternatives. Here are some elements of what I believe an effective strategy contains:
- Simplicity: no double entry. A single online database
- Interactivity: Allows members to change data online as needed
- Accessibility: Allows office staff to retrieve data to print labels etc.
My thinking is that a database solution for the wired membership organization involves using something like Drupal or other content management system that includes tools to manage members along with an interface that allow remote connection to retrieve data for reports. All data maintenance tasks are performed through a Web browser and there is no difficulty in synchronizing user entered values with owner entered data since all data is entered into the same database.
March 2nd, 2007
