Solicitor Portal

Overview

The Veracross Solicitor Portal is an add-on feature for the Development 3 module that allows solicitors to view vital information related to their fundraising activities and constituents directly through their Portal. The information displayed is completely customizable using our Portals 3 framework and makes use of a unique component and system screen.

An example of the solicitor portal targeted toward the Annual Fund fundraising activity. 

If you are looking for the legacy solicitor portal available to Development 2 users, please read our documentation here.

Configuration and Portal Setup

Configuring the solicitor portal can be done by accessing the Configuration tab on the solicitor portal record through the Portal Admin homepage. Setting up the portal can be done via the standard Portal builder functionality (read more about Portal Planning and Management here). The two features uniquely associated with the solicitor portal are:

• the Campaign Report portal component (in the Solicitors category)
• the Constituents List system screen

Configuration Tab

The "General" sub-tab on the Configuration tab of the Portal record. This is where you configure what information displays in the Constituents List system screen.

The Configuration tab on the Solicitor Portal record is where all of the configuration for the solicitor portal takes place outside of the Portal Builder tool. It is split into two sub-tabs:

• the General sub-tab contains a list of parameters that allow you to custom-tailor exactly what information appears in the Constituents List system screen. The acceptable values for these fields are either "true" or "false". Additionally, you can set the email addresses that are automatically notified when updates are made in the Solicitor Portal.
• the Fundraising Activities sub-tab allows you to set which fundraising activities are designated to this specific solicitor portal. This, in part, informs which solicitors are granted access to this particular portal. To add a fundraising activity, click on the Add Record... button and select from your available options. Multiple fundraising activities can be added to a single solicitor portal, if you so choose.

Campaign Report Component

An example of a Campaign Report component and the available options for the component in the column on the right.

The Campaign Report component is a portal component that shows your solicitors various pieces of data related to a specific fundraising activity. In addition to raw data, you can also adjust various aesthetic options about how the component is displayed (e.g., alignment, whether it displays as a list or in a "card format", border width, etc.) to better match your school's branding. 

• Make sure that you select the correct Fundraising Activity in the drop-down menu! Each individual component can only display one fundraising activity, so you will likely need to add more than one Campaign Report component if a solicitor portal is intended for more than one fundraising activity.
• It is important to distinguish each component for each fundraising activity seperately so your solicitors know exactly what they're looking at. We recommend you label each Campaign Report component with a header text component illustrating exactly which fundraising activity a campaign report component is referencing.

Constituents List System Screen

The Constituents List system screen for George Fuller — an example user.

The Constituents List system screen shows specific information regarding constituents that the logged-in user is flagged as a solicitor for. The information shown here is governed by the parameters set on the General sub-tab on the Configuration tab of the solicitor portal record.

On the screen itself, solicitors can:

• obtain vital information about their constituents needed to perform solicitor tasks
• filter and search through their assigned constituents based on a number of criteria
• perform basic functions related to the opportunity directly in the portal, such as:
  • adjust  giving status, category, opportunity phase, and solicitor notes
  • review recent actions, tasks, and notes pertaining to the constituent's opportunity
  • enter new constituent notes
  • save changes made through the portal using a green Save Changes button that appears on the bottom of the screen if any values are changed

To add this system screen to a solicitor portal, include the following link in a navigation link, button, or whatever method you choose in the portal builder:

To learn more about system screens, please review our documentation here.

Portal Membership

To be included as a member in a solicitor portal by default, the following must be true:

• must have Dev 1, Dev 2, or Solicitor security role
• must be a solicitor on the constituent or on the opportunity, depending on the portal configuration for the constituent list sources
• must be a solicitor for an opportunity for the configured fundraising activities for the solicitor portal

To add new people to the solicitor portal's portal membership, you can do one of the following:

• Ensure that they meet the criteria listed above and run the Refresh Portal Membership procedure through the action menu on the solicitor portal record
• Manually add them through the Add Record... button on the Manually Added tab on the solicitor portal record

To add alumni volunteers as solicitors:

• Review the Solicitor security role configuration from the Security Role query on the System homepage. Typically, Primary App is set to "Portals" and you can confirm there is a Welcome Email Template associated with this role.
• A SysAdmin must create a user account for that person (this can be done from the Action menu on their person record).
• Once a user account has been created, the alumni must set up their account. This is most often done by sending them a VC Welcome Email.

Update Notifications

An example of a Development_Solicitor_Update system email template. Note the To, CC, and BCC address fields in the right column.

You can control who is sent, cc-ed, and bcc-ed emails sent out when a solicitor makes an update in the portal through the Constituents List system screen. Additionally, you can construct your own custom email template that is sent out in this way through the Development_Solicitor_Update system email template, which is accessible through the Email Templates query on the System homepage. If you'd like to learn more about constructing system emails, we recommend you read our documentation on the topic here.

You can populate these fields in one of two places — the configuration tab of the solicitor portal detail screen or the email template record itself. Our suggestions for where you should populate these fields are as follows:

• Solicitor Portal Detail: populate the notification fields here if you want these people to only be included in emails for this specific solicitor portal.
• Email Template Record: populate the notification fields here if you want these people to be included in emails for ALL solicitor portals.