Choose Your Melissa Data SmartMover Schedule
So which Melissa Data SmartMover schedule is right for your church? Here are some scenarios that might help you decide.
Scenario One
Gail's church does a lot of communication through postal mail and she needs to make sure that all of their address are up to date all of the time. This ensures their glossy pledge campaign mailers, summer mission trip update newsletters, and Christmas cards get delivered to the right addresses, but it also provides peace of mind when the Senior Pastor wants to send a last-minute postcard. Gail uses both the nightly and monthly schedules to set it and forget it.
- Gail configures both the nightly and monthly schedules.
- The first night after configuration, most addresses in the system are validated. Fewer addresses are submitted on subsequent nights because there are fewer to check.
- The first night after configuration, the Address Change Task User receives the change of address information.
Scenario Two
Rachel wants to ensure that every address in her system is correct and that every new address is entered correctly. But she's done a cost/benefit analysis and determined that they're comfortable receiving updated address information from their people without relying on the Melissa Data SmartMover monthly schedule. Rachel can configure her system for the nightly schedule and rest easy knowing she's serving her church well.
- Rachel configures the nightly schedule.
- The first night after configuration, most addresses in the system are validated. Fewer addresses are submitted for validation on subsequent nights.
Note: Don't plan to use the monthly schedule? No problem! However, we strongly recommend you entered an Address Change Task User before the nightly routine runs for the first time. Why? If your church has never validated Addresses, it's likely there are dozens (or hundreds) of outdated Addresses. Remember, both schedules check for CASS and NCOA. If the system finds a move and there is no Address Change Task User, no one is notified of this move. And the system will find that same move tomorrow night for that Address, and no one will be notified, and so on and so forth until there is an Address Change Task User. So we strongly suggest you select one of the options below to ensure you don't resubmit changed addresses (and use credits) multiple times.
- Best Plan: Populate the Address Change Task User field for the first night to handle moves, and then leave it empty going forward if needed.
- Good Plan: If you'd rather not manage moves at all, consider mass assigning any unvalidated addresses to Do Not Validate after the first night. If the Record did not validate and did not go into the Fix View, it is likely the system found a move, but there was no User to notify. This prevents someone resubmitting the addresses for validation.
Scenario Three
Because Andrew's church moved to almost entirely electronic communication, he only thinks about postal addresses once a year during statement season. Andrew configures the Melissa Data SmartMover to check only Donor addresses using both the nightly and monthly schedules in mid-December to validate all donor addresses and catch any donor address changes before he sends out financial information.
- Andrew makes a selection of Donors and carefully mass assigns the Validated and Do Not Validate fields to No on their associated Address records. He also creates a selection of non-Donors and carefully mass assigns the Validated and Do Not Validate fields to Yes on their associated Address records. This ensures that only addresses associated with Donors submit to the Melissa Data SmartMover service.
- Andrew configures the nightly and monthly schedule to run on January 1st, and the Melissa Data SmartMover service validates the addresses and catches any change of address notifications.
- The first night after configuration, the addresses associated with the Donors validate.
- The first night after configuration, the Address Change Task User receives the change of address information for the donor addresses.
- Andrew is satisfied that the Donor addresses are correct, so he removes the Melissa License Key from the Domain record. Addresses no longer submit for validation.