A visitor buys four tickets online and types into the comments box: “One guest uses a wheelchair, please seat us near the ramp.” Or a donor writes “In memory of my father, Walter.” The order lands in Altru, the acknowledgement goes out automatically, and the note the person cared most about is nowhere in it. They wonder whether anyone read it.
Getting that note into the acknowledgement is mostly a data question: where does the comment live once the order is in Altru, and can your acknowledgement template reach it? Below is how to work that out, plus the workarounds that tend to hold up when the answer is “not directly.”
Start by finding where the note actually lands
Before touching any template, place a test order on your live web form (or in a sandbox, if you have one) with an obvious note like “TEST NOTE 123.” Then look for it in Altru:
- Open the constituent record the order created or matched, and check notes and any attributes.
- Open the related revenue or sales order record and look for comments or notes there.
- If your form uses custom questions, check where those answers were stored.
Write down exactly which record and which field holds the text. Everything else depends on this. Notes attached to a constituent behave very differently from a comment stored on the transaction, and a free-text note is harder to work with than an answer stored in a defined field.
Can the acknowledgement template use that field?
Acknowledgement letters and emails in Altru pull from a defined set of merge fields tied to the transaction and constituent. Whether a web order comment is one of them depends on where the comment is stored and how your acknowledgement process is set up. We aren’t going to promise it’s available everywhere, because it varies by setup and by acknowledgement type.
To confirm for your own database:
- Open the template you use for that acknowledgement and review the list of available merge fields.
- Look for anything that maps to the field you identified in your test order.
- If it’s there, add it, send the test order’s acknowledgement to yourself, and check the output.
- If you can’t find it or aren’t sure, ask Blackbaud support directly: “Can a comment entered on an online order be merged into the acknowledgement for that order?” Mention the specific form and acknowledgement type.
Workarounds when the template can’t reach the note
Capture the note in a field you can query
Free-text comment boxes are convenient for buyers and awkward for everyone else. If the note serves a known purpose, such as a tribute name, an accessibility request, or a gift message, consider collecting it in a dedicated field instead (a custom question or an attribute, depending on what your form supports). A defined field is far easier to pull into a query, a report, or an output template than a general comment.
Build a query that pairs the note with the order
Even if the acknowledgement template can’t see it, a query often can. Create a query that returns the order or revenue record, the constituent’s name and email, and the note field, filtered to recent online transactions where the note isn’t blank. That gives you a working list of every order that came with a message.
Send a follow-up, or handle notes as a separate step
With that query in hand, you have a few options:
- Personal follow-up. For tributes and special requests, a staff member reviews the list daily and replies by hand. It’s slower, but it’s often what donors and visitors appreciate most.
- Hold notes for manual acknowledgement. Route orders with notes into a separate acknowledgement process, so a person can add the text before it goes out. This works best at low volume.
- Export and mail merge. Export the query and merge it into an email outside Altru. It works, but someone has to remember to run it, and the exports pile up.
Tell the right people internally
Sometimes the real need isn’t the acknowledgement at all. An accessibility request matters more to the front desk than to the buyer’s inbox. A simple daily report of orders with notes, sent to whoever handles visitor services or tribute gifts, closes the loop even if the acknowledgement stays generic.
A few things to settle before you build
- Should the buyer see their note echoed back? For a tribute, yes; it reassures them the name is spelled right. For an internal request (“please call me about parking”), repeating it can look odd.
- What if the note is blank? Make sure the template or email doesn’t print an empty label like “Your note:” with nothing after it.
- Who reads the notes? Assign an owner. Comments that nobody reviews are worse than no comment box, because the buyer assumes someone did.
- Character limits and odd text. Test long notes, line breaks, and emoji to see how they come through in your output.
Where Social Good fits
If the note is reachable in an Altru query, Email Designer can send automated, branded emails from that query without manual exports, which makes a “we received your note” follow-up or a richer acknowledgement something that runs on its own instead of a daily spreadsheet task. The first step is still the same: confirm where the note is stored.
Quick answers
Will editing the acknowledgement template change emails already sent?
No. Template changes affect acknowledgements generated after the change.
Should we remove the comment box from the web form?
Only if nobody reads it. If people use it for a few recurring reasons, replace it with specific questions so the answers are easier to use.
