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2020 feature updates: LGL’s year in review

Posted December 15, 2020 by Teri Bicknell

LGL 2020 Feature Updates

As we wrap up 2020, we’d like to share with you the most significant feature updates that we have made to Little Green Light over the course of the year. Please read below to peruse the list at a glance and click on a feature name to link to more details.

If you’d like a deep dive into highlighted feature updates from 2020, we recommend attending this upcoming webinar on January 12, 2021, at 3pm ET.

2020 feature updates

Highlights

Additional updates

LGL forms

Highlights

Additional updates

2020 feature updates

Highlights

Little Green Light now offers an integration with Zapier

Zapier is an app-connecting service that helps automate workflows. We launched the integration earlier this year.

Read more about how the Zapier integration works.

Updates to constituent sorting

You can now sort constituents by first name or organization name.

NOTE: It is no longer possible to sort by Capacity or Interest.

Constituent sort feature update

Initiate the printing of labels and envelopes more quickly

You can now print your labels and envelopes directly from the “Send mail” button following an advanced constituent search:

Print label button in LGL

Step 4 of mailing builder now links off to “Excluded” constituents

When you’re building your mailing list in Step 4 of the mailing or email builder, the number of exclusions has always displayed so that you could see how many there were. Now, if there are any exclusions in effect you can click on the link and a new tab will open containing the excluded constituents so that you can see who they are.

View excluded constituents in mailing

Preview your addresses or envelopes in a mailing

When you have selected to use labels or envelopes in a mailing, you can now view a preview of what those addresses will look like in the window shown below:

Mailing address preview block in LGL

View a summary of your pledges on the Dashboard

There is now a widget available on the Dashboard page that shows a summary of pledges. You can toggle between All, Open, or Closed, and you’ll see the pledges summed by the year they were made.

Pledge summary widget in LGL

Pledge Summary report in LGL

Gift History PDF templates have been added to giving reports

Now you can quickly and easily produce a polished PDF report of a constituent’s gift history for specific time periods, not just for their entire donation history. Go to the constituent giving history, click the “Gift History” button, and make your selection from the available options:

Gift History reports in LGL

The soft credit Amount field now auto-populates during gift entry

Now, when you are entering a gift, whenever the constituent has a relationship that is set to be automatically soft credited the soft credit amount will be automatically filled in to match the gift amount, rather than needing to be manually filled in.

soft credits auto-populate in gift record

adding a soft credit

The presence of Mailchimp- and Constant Contact-subscribed constituents who can’t receive email (due to having no valid email address, being assigned the “Do not email” communication tag, or because they’re deceased) now generates a Dashboard alert:

Fundraising view by payment type

You can now view gifts grouped by payment type in the Fundraising tab. You can search/filter for gifts first and then apply this roll-up view:

Fundraising by payment type view

Additional updates

Requirements for setting/updating passwords

When you create or update a password, it must now satisfy a stricter set of requirements. This update enhances security for Little Green Light users. Please update your password if you don’t already use a strong password.

Password updates

LGL Password requirements

Include membership details in custom constituent reports

For constituent reports you create, please note that the “Memberships” report column now offers custom options so that you can filter which memberships to include. You can filter by membership level and membership dates.

View your fundraising data by campaign and appeal

A new option in the View menu on the Fundraising tab allows you to display your campaign and appeal gifts onscreen.

New Fundraising view report

Ability to search gifts by in-honor/in-memory names

You can now search in Fundraising > Giving by the name of the honoree/deceased. Tribute gifts now also show the name of the honoree/deceased in search results:

New search for honorary names

Automatically send pledge reminders to Gift Entry team members

Previously, when you enabled the gift setting in your LGL account to send pledge reminders automatically, you were able to send them only to other team members who were Administrators. You can now automatically send pledge reminders to Gift Entry users as well.

Update team members to see pledge reminders

Reprocessed failed recurring payments that are resubmitted and for which the payment completes are now automatically synced to LGL

You no longer need to resync failed recurring payments that have been successfully resubmitted. Those will be automatically synced to your LGL account.

automatic sync of previoulsly failed recurring payments

Enable file uploads via Help request form

Now when you submit a help request you can upload a file, such as a screenshot or a spreadsheet, along with your request.

submit screenshot with help request

Now only Admins can be billing contacts

We allow only Administrators in Little Green Light accounts to be selected as billing contacts. Previously any user could be selected.

Only admins can be billing contacts

Choose whether to send a reminder when adding a related task to a gift

Related tasks can be added to all types of gifts. This is useful when you want to take action in a specific way in response to a gift or pledge. You can add as many related tasks as needed by clicking the “Add related task” button. Each task you add will be connected to the constituent who gave the gift. The update is that now you can choose to send reminders to the task owner.

Adding a related task in LGL

Search for gifts from donors who are not deceased

deceased donor search in LGL

More easily clear selected constituents after a bulk update

Now you can set a flag to automatically clear selected constituents following a bulk edit. The checkbox shown below allows you to de-select the constituents you selected for your bulk edit:

how to clear records after a bulk edit in LGL

Designate a gift as “Anonymous” when you are entering gifts in bulk

Add anonymous gifts in bulk in lGL

In-kind quantities are now displayed in a constituent’s detailed profile

For accounts that have enabled the option to show quantities (pounds) for in-kind gifts, now when you look at a constituent’s detailed profile (accessible from within the constituent record) in-kind quantities are displayed, as shown here:

In kind quantities report in LGL

Setting an end date for a scheduled report

When you want to use a scheduled report for a limited period of time, you can set an end date as you are building it, in the “Save Export” step shown below:

add end date for scheduled reports

Duplicate checker now matches display even when there is a mismatch in capitalization

Now when the text matches but the capitalization does not match, the duplicate checker will display that a match is present (it used to find the match properly but did not display the green “Match” text):

duplicate checker updates

External ID now included in duplicate checker, when present

The external ID now displays in the duplicate checker, if one is present:

external id visible in duplicate checker

During bulk gift entry, if you choose the “Sync to QuickBooks Online” setting it will be preserved for the next gift:

sync to quickbooks setting

“Do not acknowledge via LGL” values now preserved when entering multiple gifts:

acknowledgment preference updates

Pending tribute notifications are now included in the Alerts section of the Dashboard

When you have created but not yet sent a tribute notification, a notification will appear in the Alerts section of your Dashboard:

tribute notification alerts

Additional values can now be added to the “short lists” for QuickBooks Online

Within the Little Green Light integration with QuickBooks Online, it is now possible to add additional values (not just mapped ones) from a QuickBooks Online account to the “short lists” of Products/Services, Classes, and Payment Methods:

Quickbooks sync updates

We have updated 2 search terms among the Fundraising Advanced Search criteria to make their meanings clearer:

  • “Date” has been updated to “Gift date”
  • “Note” has been updated to “Gift note”

updated names of search terms in LGL

New merge fields now available for LGL mailings and tribute notifications

  • Maiden name
  • Donor names

A mail merge field for maiden name is now available, making it possible to print constituents’ maiden names on name tags for class reunions, for example.

Added maiden name merge field

Tribute donor names

You can now pull donor names without addresses into tribute notifications. The [[donor_names]] merge field is included only in the Merge Field Reference in the Tributes section of your LGL account, because it is available only for tribute notifications. It is not available to use in standard mailings or acknowledgments. You can find the Tributes Merge Field Reference on the Tributes page in your account:

August 2020 update: Tribute notifications

The Tribute Notification Templates page now contains a tab for archived tributes

Whenever you archive a tribute notification template, you’ll now be able to access it on the tab shown in this screenshot.

August 2020 update: Archived tributes

Option to make your password visible during account login

It is now possible to display your password from the login prompt by clicking the “eye” icon, as shown here:

Display password creen in LGL

Add honorary name to searchable name types

You can now search for constituents by their honorary name:

Honorary name search

Names of saved searches are now “sticky”

For a saved search, the name of the search now remains in the “Saved Searches” dropdown box after the search is loaded.

Saved search names

If you change the search criteria for the search, its name will disappear from the dropdown but the original saved search will be unchanged.

Flex Importer Preview displays calculated fields only for new records

The Flex Importer Record Preview now displays data for calculated salutation and addressee only when a new record is being created.

Example when no match is found:

Updated addressee fields

Example when a match is found:

Import exisitng names

Bulk remove constituents from Mailchimp or Constant Contact lists

Now you can remove constituents who cannot receive email (according to the LGL communication tags assigned to their record, such as “do not email”, “deceased”, or “no valid email”) individually or in bulk from the “Needs Review” tab, on either your Mailchimp Integration Settings page or your Constant Contact Integration Settings page.

emails to be reviewed

emails to be reviewed for Constant Contact integration

Default system categories are no longer updatable

It is no longer possible for default system categories, which have specific meanings and behaviors, to be renamed or removed. Communication Tags are an example of a default system category.

default categories in LGL

Matching gifts are now included in the Gift History report

Matching gifts are now included in the detailed gift list on Gift History Reports (PDFs), which you can download from Constituent pages.

Limit on the number of Flex Importer rules/defaults that can be placed

It is possible to set no more than 20 rules or defaults on any given field mapping within the Flex Importer.

number of rules limited

Restrict matching by constituent type in the Flex Importer

You can now select to restrict matching by constituent type within the matching preferences for an import.

LGL forms updates

Highlights

For recurring gifts from LGL forms, different mappings are now available for the first submission versus subsequent submissions

In the mapping for your form, you can now indicate which fields should be synced every time a recurring gift is processed and which fields should be synced for the first gift only.

Syncing recurring gift options in LGL Forms

LGL forms now displays Payment Account in your list of forms

This helps you see which payment processor you’ve set for each of your payment-enabled forms, which is especially handy if you have more than one payment processor linked to your LGL account.

August 2020 update: Form shows payment processor used

Restrict matching by constituent type

You can now select to restrict matching by constituent type for an LGL form within the matching/syncing preferences for the form.

How to restrict matches by constituent type in LGL Forms

Additional updates

Whenever you embed code on a webpage or in a social media channel, there is a text string included that reads, “Link to my LGL Form!” This text will display if your form can’t be rendered, such as on a Facebook post. You can now update this text from the “Publish” page for your form within LGL forms, as shown here:

customize form link text

LGL forms: Ability to view recurring gifts by end date

We have added a view in LGL forms where you can see recurring gifts by their scheduled end date, for multiple time frames.

recurring gifts by end date

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