This article describes approaches to facilitating custom donation pages on your web portal. The details below deal with the specifics of the standard donations form. Please refer to this article to add a campaign status bar, scrolling recent donors list and/or a page that tracks funds raised by an individual person
The Two Approaches To Customization
There are two approaches to customizing donation pages on your Gnosis portal:
- Use an existing page and set-up specific categorizations (Account, Solicitation Code, Source, Campaign) that can be changed based on the page URL options used.
- Customize an existing page or add a new page and/or change other aspects of the donor experience on the page. (see note below)
See also at the foot of this document, information on a special "test" mode that allows you to process donations on the page without actually charging a card - plus some other options.
Option #1: Set Categorizations on Existing Page
You may use your existing donation page if all you need to do is customize the Account, Campaign, Source or Solicitation code (or any combination thereof).
To change the default codes, you must specify the desired code(s) on the URL used to open the donation page as follows:
https://myOrg.gnosishosting.net/portal/donate?Option1=Option1ID&Option2=Option2ID
Let's look at each part of this page URL:
- The page address is depicted in black with your unique Organization ID replacing the myOrg text at the beginning of the URL - this is the address of the page you wish to use on your Gnosis portal.
- The ? character must be added after the page URL to indicate that there are options being specified for the page.
- The option to add to the page is specified as OptionName=OptionID where the OptionID is the ID number shown in Reference Data and the option name can be any of the following:
- Account
- SolicitCode
- ContribSrc
- CampaignID
- If you are specifying multiple options, separate each one with a & character
An example of a page set up with a custom account and campaign would be:
https://YourOrg.gnosishosting.net/portal/donate?Account=1234&CampaignID=5678
If you are including the URL as a link in a Gnosis email message, you may also wish to include the AutoLogin token to pre-fill the form with donor information and if available, card-on-file. To do this, double-click on the Auto-Login option in the special mail merge field section to copy the token first, then paste the AutoLogin token into the URL as follows:
https://YourOrg.gnosishosting.net/Portal/Donate«AutoLoginParams»&Account=1234&CampaignID=5678
Any of these options specified on the URL like this will override any setting specified in the page itself, thus allowing you to use these URL options to customize how the donation is recorded when using the page.
Option #2: Customize or Add a New Page
PLEASE NOTE: This second option is only supported by Connect4 for clients that have an SSA in place or clients that have paid for additional training on the Composite Web Portal.
Below are the steps used to copy an existing donation page from your Gnosis Portal in order to create another, custom donation page. If you wish to just customize the existing page instead of copying it, you can reference just the sections on Composite Access and Step 5 below.
This process allows you to manage multiple donation pages for specified purposes, like special campaigns or third-party events, in order to funnel all income to specific income classes. The article includes the following sections:
- Composite Access
- Step 1: Create the New Page
- Step 2: Update the Unified Contribution Control
- Step 3: Update Page Content
- Sharing a New Donation Page
Composite Access
If you have not been given access to and trained on the Composite site used to manage your Gnosis Portal pages, submit a request to Support@Connect4.net.
Step 1: Create the New Page
In Composite, locate the donation page that you want to copy - most likely found under the Guest Portal tree of pages.
1. Highlight the existing page > click Duplicate Page.
This will create a copy of the page as shown here:
2. If you need to move the page to a different subsection:
- Right click > Cut
- Select parent page/top of desired section > right click > Paste.
3. Edit the newly copied page, switch to the Settings tab and update the following:
- Page title - How the page will be named in the tree of web pages in Composite.
- Description - Include the purpose of this page (optional)
- URL title - You may simplify the page name used at the end of the full URL by changing this text.
- Menu title - If you wish for this page to be listed in your Portal menu online, you keep/edit this text. If you wish to not include the page in your Portal side menu, simply delete the text in this field and leave it blank.
- Friendly URL - This option allows you to create a shorter URL. If you were to enter "gifts" into this field, the page address would by https://MyOrgID.gnosishosting.net/gifts
Step 2: Updating the Unified Contribution Control
- On the Content tab of the page and make sure you are in the Page Body content area.
- Press the Edit button on the Unified Contributions control on the page and you will be presented with the following dialog with a large number of customization options:
- The list below identifies the fields which you will generally review and update if necessary.
As a general rule, we recommend you only edit options that you understand based on their name or their description available by clicking on the "?" button next to each item. If you have any questions on how to update a specific field, contact Support@Connect4.net.
Key for the list below,
* identifies a required field
+ indicates you must obtain the ID number from Reference Data Management in Gnosis
Donation Account Default *+ (The account to use unless overridden by other selections)
Donation Account for Tributes *+ (Optional for use If checking Tribute Visible below.)
Donation Account Visible (Checking on will display a list of accounts to choose from)
Donation Amount Default (the amount selected to use when the page is loaded)
Donation Amount Fixed - (Used for selling raffle tickets at a fixed price.)
Donation Amounts (a comma-separated list of amounts to display)
Donation Anonymous Visible (Make the anonymous checkbox visible)
Donation Campain ID + (The Reference Data ID of the value you wish to use)
Donation Comments Visible (make the description/comment text box visible)
Donation Comms Item to Send - If a new communications item has been created in Gnosis Comms for this special donate page, update the Comms ID here. (Note: A communications item used here must use the "Contributions Contributors & Financials" schema)
Donation Comms Item to Send Recurring - Only used, if desired, if recurring gifts are enabled below.
Donation Comms Send Welcome Packet Recurring - Only used, if desired, if recurring gifts are enabled below.
Donation Contribution Source ID + (The Reference Data ID of the value you wish to use)
Donation Credit Card Code Required (Set to require the 3/4 digit security code to be used).
Donation Credit Card Transaction Description (Description to go on the donor's credit card statement)
Donation Item Count Caption - If using setting Donation Amount Fixed above, use this field to provide a name to what the donor is purchasing, ex. Tickets, Raffle Tickets, etc.
Donation Minimum (Minimum dollar amount to allow)
Donation Maximum (Maximum dollar amount to allow - specified by your merchant account)
Donation Phone Required (Requires the donor to provide a phone number)
Donation Phone Visible (Adds phone number to the form)
Donation Solicitation Code ID + (The Reference Data ID of the value you wish to use)
Donation Subscription ID (The ID of the subscription to use for recurring contributions.) You may obtain this ID from an existing donation page with recurring gifts turned on; if recurring gifts have not get been set up in your system, contact Support.
Donation Tribute to Person Status + (The Member Status ID to use for persons added as tribute acknowledgment recipients)
Donation Tribute to Person Type + (The Record Type ID to use for persons added as tribute acknowledgment recipients)
Donation Tribute Visible (Determines whether the tribute option is displayed on the form)
Donor Address Verification Enabled - (If enabled, helps the donor with address prompts and verifies the entered address)
Step 3: Edit/Add Desired Page Message Content
You are able to add specific text and images that accompany the focus of the donation page. To do this, add text and images to the Page Body and/or Page Side sections.
If you wish to add a fundraising thermometer to the top of your new page, see Adding a Thermometer to a Custom Donation Page for guidance.
Be sure to Save and Publish when finished!
Sharing A New Donation Page
To obtain the full URL for this new page, select the page in the composite page tree, then:
- Press the View Mode button (shown in the image below)
- Choose "Public Version"
- Copy the public URL from the page address bar.
If wishing to link to this page in a Gnosis Communications email, link to this URL and be sure to add the auto-login parameters.
If you have questions on how to format your text and or images, please contact Support@Connect4.net for assistance.
Testing Your Page
Especially if you are creating a new online contribution page, you will want to test it to ensure that it is behaving the way you expect it to before you release it to the public.
To assist with testing the donation page without having to actually process a bunch of card charges, you can put the page into test mode. There are a number of test modes available and they are depicted in the chart below:
To use one of these test modes, you will add the following to the donation page URL:
?ContribTestMode=TestValue
TestValue can be any one of the values depicted in the table above.
Note: If you already have parameters on the page, you will add the "ContribTestMode" prefixed with an "&" instead of a "?" as described in the rules for URL parameter formatting in option #1 above.
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