Blog posts
Product Updates
Product Updates
Product Update - August 2023
David Simpson
August 1, 2023
For those of you who like a bit of precision on your dashboard cards, metric cards for currency fields can now report down to the penny.
An update for the real Beacon nerds here. You can now create related record cards with multiple related fields. For example, as you can see below, one card can now list memberships where this person is a member OR an additional member. Or you can show the total amount that was donated OR fundraised by this person (i.e. where this person is in either the payer or fundraiser field).
It's now more convenient to filter for dates in the future with the 'days from now' option. Click the 'days ago' button and it'll switch to 'days from now'.
We've made two changes to address formatting for document merge. We've updated how US addresses export to align with the USPS guidance. US addresses will now be formatted like this:
1 APPLE PARK WAY
CUPERTINO, CA 95014
We've also added the option to choose whether to include the address's country field if it is present. You can switch off showing countries on addresses from your merge template. If you're only sending letters to people in the UK there's no need to include 'United Kingdom' at the end of addresses any more.
We're currently undertaking a project to improve the overall speed and responsiveness of the Beacon interface. We're investing in making sure that Beacon's interface continues to make use of the most modern tools, processes, and approaches. For the data nerds, this includes moving away from old-school REST APIs and running our entire front-end from GraphQL, which is faster, more flexible, and will help us to make updates even quicker.
While we're undertaking this work you may notice, ironically, that some parts of Beacon will become a little less responsive. It's complicated, but the approach of incremental improvement that we're taking means that sometimes we have to take one step back in order to take two steps forward. We're dedicated to providing a best-in-class product experience and you can expect to see ongoing improvements to Beacon's responsiveness.
If you're new to Beacon and you're looking to really get to grips with your CRM then you can enrol in one of our free online courses through Beacon Lighthouse. We've got Deep Dive courses on Major Gifts & Grants and Events & Ticketing, all curated by Senior Customer Success Manager and Lighthouse Keeper, Luke.
We run a variety of events to help you to get the most out of Beacon, including regular clinics, deep dives into specific features, and in-person meetups. We've also got recordings of previous events so you'll never miss something useful. You can find everything listed on the Beacon events page.
Beacon customers are invited to join our private Facebook Group. It's a place to exchange ideas, tips, and best practices.
You can find the group here and we'd love to welcome you in.
The group is only available to Beacon customers.
We're improving how Beacon manages campaigns, making it easier to trial new Beacon elements, and making improvements to our Zapier integration.
