Ops Insights #098 - The Fixer - 6 Questions and Answers
September 29, 2026 | Read Time: 4 minutes | Written by Jenny Kleintop
When I see an incoming email with “Help” or “SOS” in the subject line, I know it’s often coming from a place of: I’ve tried everything, and now I just want someone to tell me how to fix it.
That’s where I come in.
Below are 6 questions I received via email over the past few weeks and how I responded. I love helping and being there for my clients, and have been called the fixer. This is something I’ll always value because when I was in their shoes, I didn’t have that person.
RENXT
1️⃣ Question: We are trying to figure out why some of the organization relationship contacts aren’t pulling into the acknowledgements export. We were comparing records for ones that do and the ones that don’t (we are still puzzled), but we came across something and I don’t know if you have seen something like this happen. I have my screen shot below that shows when I open it the checkboxes/relationship/etc. are not checked/blank. It’s the same record, we verified. And I opened and closed it 3-4 times.
>> Answer: It looks like two different relationships. I know that because one has a Const. ID from the Org to the Individual relationship and the other does not.
FIXED.
2️⃣ Question: I’m a little stuck on something. We need information on donors to a specific program. The only way we track those is through the “Program Designation”. I have a query with donors to the program designation. Where I’m stuck is the export. I did an export for the above query. I am pulling their total gifts/total gift amounts and their last gift and last gift appeal because they may not need to be contacted if they are giving elsewhere. Where I’m stuck is how to figure out in the constituent export how to pull the dates to the program designations. I can see in NXT when I’m doing a quick gift list with the 2 program designations the appeals are all over the place, but that gift list doesn’t allow me to do the last gift so we can see what their last gift is towards if it’s something different.
>> Answer: In the Constituent Export, you’ll want two last gift info columns. One for the Program and another for everything else. When you pull in the last gift info, go to the filter tab and use a Gifts Query to filter down to Program Designation, meaning = the Program. Then in your 2nd last gift info field, filter using a 2nd gift query that says does not equal the Program Designation.
FIXED with reply: OMGGGGGGGGGG it worked. That’s insane that’s the way it has to be done though and I would never have thought of that. Sigh.
3️⃣ Question: I am literally having such a brain cramp, and I am sure it is something easy but can’t wrap my head around it. We closed the fiscal year and I was asked to do a pledge before we closed the year and then the payment came in the new fiscal year. What I am struggling with is $20,000 of the $80,000 pledge belongs to the event. When it was booked, it all went to our VIP. I am stuck on how to fix the pledge and apply to payment correctly because the pledge is now accounted for.
>> Answer: Do a gift adjustment on the pledge and click on the last tab within the adjustment and that is where you can split the gift into two lines, part to VIP and part to the event. Then you can do a gift adjustment on the pledge payment and do the same.
FIXED.
4️⃣ Question: I'm looking at our users in NXT and a bunch of people have Admin access. We have 2 new staff starting tomorrow so I was going to give them permissions and saw a bunch of people have admin privileges again. Can you please confirm that not everyone should have admin rights?
>> Answer: Correct, everyone should not have Admin access. At least 2 people should have it so there is a backup to the main DBA but no more unless there is a compelling reason. There is a loop hole with Omatic. You need Supervisor access to update the Omatic profiles which may be why some got Admin access.
FIXED.
5️⃣ Question: I’m pulling lists on active campaigns, funds and appeals. I noticed that when I pull up the active funds, EVERY fund seems to be active. Is there a reason that you know of that these need to be active or is it safe to inactivate a lot of these?
>> Answer: Good question. Most of the time funds stay active. The reason to make them inactive is when you are no longer receiving money from them, ever, and both you and finance are closing it down. If you check with finance and they say it’s inactive on their side, I’d make it inactive on your side.
FIXED.
MS Access Database
6️⃣ Question: I’m getting an error message when running the Opt-Out list that says “Data type criteria mismatch in criteria expression.”
>> Answer: Last Gift Date and Last Gift Amount, try removing those quotes and re-run.
FIXED.
If you are stuck, don’t stay there. Reach out to someone, anyone. You have way too much to do than to be stuck.
👋 See you next time,
Jenny
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