Top 5 Spring 2014 Greater Giving Release Notes

With the spring 2014 release of so many new features added to Greater Giving’s tools, it’s hard for me to know where to start.

More detailed notes on the release can be found on the Release Notes section of our Online Help. Per our latest release, I’ve compiled a list of my top five features and listed a few reasons why they made my list. So without further ado…the top 5:

 

So flashy – Greater Giving’s new Leader-boards and Sponsorship Display 

Displaying Leader-boards is a great way to show your event guests real time updates on top bidders. Am I the current winner bidder or did I just get outbid by a person across the room? Leader-boards are set to loop showing all the packages as well as the highest bid for the package in real time. Leader-boards can be customized to show specific data such as All Packages, All Unbid Packages, Packages by closing time, Packages by Package number and much more. Sponsorship logos are displayed across the bottom of the screen so guests can see who is supporting the event. Sponsorship logos move across the bottom in a right to left motion, looping about every ten seconds. With no cap on the number of Leaderboards you display, you can have the same data exhibited multiple times around your venue.

The Quick Bid – Mobile Bidding’s Quick Bids button

Bid increments are something Greater Giving Online has always been able to do with Paper Bid Sheets, yet the spring 2014 release took it to a whole new level with the feature of Quick Bids. Quick Bids take the pre-created bid increment level (created by the admin in Greater Giving Online) and automatically show it as an easy to click button, so Bidders can bid quickly and seamlessly. With this built-in feature, guests don’t have to do the math determining the next increment. With the easy Quick Bids button, a guest can make a bid and move on to the next package.

“We want to split up who pays for this package”- The Split Pay 

Do a few friends want to go in on one big Live Auction package? No problem. Spring 2014’s release brought about the feature of letting bidders split payments in a whole new way. In Greater Giving GoTime they can divide the payment equally across a number of bidders using GoTime Split Payments feature. Purchases can be divided evenly or broken out over a number of guests.

Auction Receipts

“Are you still there?” – New Time-out Message Warning 

Did you take a break to talk to a fellow volunteer or maybe a bidder? Greater Giving Online now gives you a warning that you are about to be logged out from inactivity. This feature helps to allow you to walk away or maybe take a break from working on the Table Assignment tool, pre-event. Before the spring release, Greater Giving would log you out after a specific period of inactivity – now the tool tells you you’re about to be logged out before it happens.

Procurement Status Updates – Track Your Data Better 

On each Item form, Greater Giving Online users can track the procurement status for Items, essentially building a pipeline getting ready for the big gala event. This is a powerful feature for any group working with a number of volunteers or staff, all managing data as a team. Set your staff up with their login and password, and tell each person to update the status as they come in contact with a Donor or Item.

The current order for Item Procurement Status is: Looking for Donor, Asked Donor, Promised by Donor, Received, Delivered to Bidder, Declined, Not Received, Unsold, and Not Picked Up by Bidder. Greater Giving power users will use this resource heavily in conjunction with the Item Location feature helping committees keep track of where an Item is currently being stored.

So those are my top 5 for spring 2014.

-John Chase


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