The line is out the door, the register screen is spinning, and someone at the front desk asks the question nobody planned for: “Do we just let people in?” An Altru outage can be short, but you still need an answer ready before it happens. Here’s how to set one up.
The plan below is built for the first hour. Most interruptions are shorter than that, and most of the damage comes from the first ten minutes of confusion, not from the outage itself.
First, figure out what is actually down
Altru is hosted by Blackbaud and runs in a browser, so “Altru is down” can mean several different things. Each one gets a different response:
- Your building’s internet is down. Other websites won’t load either. This is your IT team’s problem, and a mobile hotspot may get one or two stations back online.
- One workstation or browser is misbehaving. Other stations work fine. Log out, clear the browser cache, or move the cashier to a different machine.
- Altru itself is unavailable or very slow. Every station has trouble, but other sites load. Check Blackbaud’s service status page and support channels before you assume it’s local.
- Card payments fail but Altru loads. This points to the payment terminal or the processing connection, not Altru as a whole. Treat it as a payments problem.
Put this checklist next to every register and give one named person (a lead or manager on duty) the authority to say “we’re switching to manual.” Without that, each cashier improvises.
What to have ready before you ever need it
A printed or offline copy of who your members are
Membership verification is usually the first thing that breaks. Build an Altru query of active members with name, membership level, expiration date, and member ID or card number. Export it on a regular schedule (weekly is a reasonable starting point; daily if your membership volume is high) and keep a copy somewhere that doesn’t depend on Altru: a spreadsheet saved locally on a front desk machine, plus a printed copy in the manual kit.
Treat that file as sensitive. It holds personal information, so store it somewhere access-controlled and replace old copies rather than letting them pile up.
A manual sales kit
- A paper sales log with columns for time, ticket type and quantity, price, payment method, guest name and email (for members, the member ID), and cashier initials.
- Numbered paper wristbands, stickers, or hand stamps so you can still count admissions.
- A cash drawer with starting change, and a clear rule on whether you will accept cards during an outage.
- A short script for staff: what to tell guests, and what to tell members whose status can’t be checked.
A decision on card payments
This is the question to settle in advance. If your card processing runs through Altru, you may not be able to take cards at all while Altru is unreachable. Whether you have any fallback depends on your merchant account and hardware, so ask Blackbaud support and your processor directly what is possible in your setup. Don’t assume, and don’t plan to write down card numbers on paper. That creates a security and compliance problem far bigger than a lost sale. The usual options are cash only, a standalone card terminal your processor has set up separately, or free or “pay later” entry decided by leadership.
During the outage
- Announce the switch. The person in charge tells every station to go manual and notes the start time.
- Keep members moving. Check the offline member list. If someone isn’t on it but has a card or confirmation email that looks current, most organizations let them in and note the name for follow-up. Arguing at the desk costs more goodwill than an occasional unverified entry.
- Honor existing tickets. Guests holding advance tickets or online confirmations can usually be admitted on sight, with names logged so you can check them against Altru later.
- Log every sale on paper. One line per transaction. Incomplete logs are what make recovery painful.
- Tell your online team. If your website sells tickets through Altru web forms, those may fail too. Put a short notice on the site and on social media so people don’t buy elsewhere or show up angry.
After Altru comes back
Don’t flip straight back and forget the paper. Recovery is where the data gets lost.
- Collect all logs from every station before the end of the shift.
- Enter manual sales into Altru as daily sales, dated correctly. If your workflow doesn’t let you date a sale in the past, ask Blackbaud support how they recommend recording it so revenue lands on the right day. Talk to your finance team before you choose an approach, since it affects how sales and batches reconcile.
- Reconcile cash against the paper log, not just the drawer total.
- Follow up on unverified members. Look each one up and note anyone who was actually lapsed. A renewal reminder is a better response than a confrontation.
- Write a short debrief. How long it lasted, what was confusing, what to change in the kit.
Practice it once
Run a 15-minute drill before your busy season: hand a cashier the manual kit and have them process three mock sales and one member check. You’ll learn quickly whether the member list is current, whether the log is usable, and whether anyone knows where the kit is kept.
A note on online sales
For many organizations, the website is the bigger exposure: tickets, memberships, and donations all stop when the checkout stops. If you use or are evaluating a checkout that sits in front of Altru, including our Checkouts (branded, mobile-friendly checkout for tickets, memberships, and donations that writes data back to Altru), ask specifically how it behaves when Altru is unreachable and how pending transactions are written back once it returns. Get that answer in writing as part of your contingency plan, the same way you would for your card processor.
Quick answers
Does Altru have an offline mode for the front desk?
Don’t count on one. Confirm with Blackbaud support what, if anything, works without a connection in your setup, and build your plan around the answer you get.
How current does the offline member list need to be?
Current enough that recent joiners and renewals show up. If members often renew online right before visiting, refresh it more often or let staff accept a renewal confirmation email as proof.
