We just had a release meeting to review an important update to GiftWorks that will be gradually released over the next couple weeks. This is our 3rd update to GiftWorks since our release of GiftWorks 2006 in September 05.
We are constantly trying to improve our products to better meet customer needs and expectations. This update will not change much functionality you are used to, but it does add some features you requested and fixes several bugs. I'll leave it to Sarah and Steve to go over the hightlights of the update. Sarah is our new Product Manager and Steve is our Lead Developer for GiftWorks.
I would like to describe some additions coming in Update 3 that will be important to developers. It is a goal of ours to give customers the ability to build customized addins that can help better integrate GiftWorks into their organization. We do our best by building useful features into GiftWorks off the shelf, but a lot of our customers have unique needs that can't be handled by GiftWorks without customization. Starting with Update 3, we will gradually be rolling out samples and documentation to customize GiftWorks yourself.
Some examples of customizations would be adding a new screen, or inserting a new menu item into an existing screen. We will give you examples of writing little programs that work with your SmartLists or are used to add and edit donors. The possibilities are really endless.
Update 3 also incorporates an Addin Manager which will allow you to easily install and remove your addins. It will even enable you to use addins created by other companies or organizations. We will be putting an effort into getting other companies to create addins for GiftWorks that will be made available to you.
In the next post I will show you how to create a very simple addin that you can try when you get the GiftWorks update.