How do I track prospect status in Tessitura? I’ve recently come to an organization that uses Tessitura, and I’m looking for a way to track a prospect’s overall status, similar to the Prospect Status field in Raiser’s Edge. How do you best track this information?
You’re right that Tessitura doesn’t have a field to track this out of the box! Each database is a little different, and not all have this field. That said, you can use a couple of options to track this data.
Many organizations choose to use Attributes to track Prospect Status. I generally don’t recommend this in Tessitura because Attributes cannot be updated en masse and are not usually included in reporting, but this can be a useful option for an organization with many customizations and technical support.
I recommend using Plans, Tessitura’s equivalent of Proposals, to track a solicitation’s status and a prospect’s place in the relationship management cycle. The Plan Status field is the best field to use for this purpose. Values like “Cultivation” or “Solicitation” are especially useful for known donors who give year-over-year.
Tessitura also has Prospect Plans. These Plans aren’t linked to a financial fund and thus can be used to track prospects who aren’t being solicited. Creating prospect plans with a status of “Identified” or “Disqualified” can be used to track those pools of prospects. This is easy to do in your campaign set-up, but if you have any questions, feel free to reach out.
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