Included in this article:

• What is a communication planner report?
• How to access the communication planner report
• How to interpret the communication planner report
• Downloadable PDF

What is a Communication Planner report?

The Communication Planner Report is a tool for WFAA staff to build lists for the purposes of planning events or estimating counts for a specific communication. The report includes contact information, so it may be used to produce lists for mailings, emails or phone calls.

If you choose to use this list to communicate to a group of constituents, you must also submit the final list used via the List & Report Request Form. This will allow BI to tag the constituent records to show they received the communication. Please make sure to complete this step, as it helps us understand which communications a constituent received and more generally how frequently we communicate with our constituents. This helps us continue to refine our marketing and communications strategy.

If you use this to create a solicitation mailing, please work with BI in advance in order to create an appeal.  This will streamline gift processing and allow you to track the results of your appeal.

How to access the Communication Planner report

This report allows you to select alumni from and donors to a specified unit or department.  It also allows you to select Alumni-only for a particular unit or department. Once the list is exported, you can refine the list by region, county, city, state, giving history, and ratings.  This report will apply ABE Solicit Codes based on the source of the communication.  This feature ensures that no contact information is surfaced if the constituent does not wish to receive a certain type of communication or communications from specific areas on campus or WFAA.  This feature will not exclude anyone who meets the criteria selected in the parameters, but it will suppress the relevant contact information.

1. Log in to ABE CRM.
2. On the navigation bar, click WFAA Reports.
3. Click the Communication Planner.
4. Select Donors to Unit and Donors to Department
5. Select Alumni from Unit and Alumni from Department (You can only select one unit and one department. If you’d like a list for multiple units/departments, you will have to run the report more than once or submit a BI list request)
6. Select Region and State (You may select “International” to include international mailing addresses in the output file. If you want to see all alumni and donors for the specified unit/department, use the “Select All” box for both Region and State.)
7. Select Who is Communication from? (Applies appropriate solicit codes based on the “brand” on the communication. For cross-branded communications, you may select multiple options.)
8. Select Intent of Communication (Applies additional solicit codes based on special types of communications (invitations, solicitations, magazine/newsletter)
9. Select Other Solicitcodes (Provides additional solicit codes to select if applicable. For example, some schools and colleges have multiple magazines/newsletters)
10. Select Include Double Majors (If “yes” is selected, the output will include alumni with majors to the department even if they did not graduate from the unit selected.)
11. Select Include Minors (If “yes” is selected, the output will include alumni with minors from the department selected)
12. Select Include Certificates (If “yes” is selected, the output will include alumni with certificates from the unit/department selected)
13. Select SpouseLink (If “yes”, spouses will be merged and will output together on one row. If “no”, the spouses will be listed individually on the list.)
14. Select Include Spouse even if they do not qualify? (If “yes”, the spouse of the main constituent will be included even if s/he is not a donor to or alum from the unit/department selected. Select “yes” to get an exact count of total number of people who would be invited to an event or if you’d like to invite all spouses to an event regardless of their qualification.)
15. Select Alumni Only (If “yes”, the report will exclude donors who aren’t alumni from the unit/department selected.)

Helpful hint: If you are creating an email list for alumni of a department, select “yes” to Alumni-only and “no” to Spouse Link. Names with their email addresses will be listed individually. You will have to remove anyone without an email address – this can be done by sorting or filtering on the Email Indicator or Email Address columns.

16. Click View Report.

How to interpret a Communication Planner report

What is included in the report fields?

Downloadable PDF