You run the membership card process, open the output, and the rows come out in an order that suits nobody. The Family cards are scattered among the Individual cards, the overseas members are buried in the middle, and whoever stuffs envelopes now has to sort a stack of printed cards by hand before anything goes in the mail.
The fix is usually not a sort setting. It’s how you split the work up before the process runs, plus a little cleanup after it. Below is what we’d suggest, along with an honest note on what we can’t promise about Altru’s built-in behavior.
First, be clear about what the process controls
The membership card process in Altru decides which memberships get cards. It does that through the membership program, the card format, and usually a selection that limits who is included. In our experience it gives you little or no control over the order of the rows it produces. We haven’t found a dependable sort option, and we wouldn’t assume your version has one either.
To check your own setup, open the process in a sandbox or test database, look through every tab and field, and run a small batch. If you can’t find a sort choice, ask Blackbaud support whether one exists for your release before you build around its absence. Do not count on a sorted query to hand its order to the process. A selection built from a query is a list of records, not a sequence, so any ordering you set in the query’s output is usually lost.
That leaves two dependable approaches: split the run into groups up front, or sort the output file afterward. Most teams end up doing some of both.
Option 1: Run one batch per group
If what you really need is cards grouped by membership level, the cleanest way is to stop asking one run to do everything.
- Build one membership query per group. For levels, filter on membership level (and the program, if you have more than one). For country, filter on the primary address country of the member’s constituent record.
- Save each query as a selection so the card process can use it.
- Copy the card process once per group and point each copy at its own selection. Name them so it’s obvious what they do, for example “Cards – Family – Domestic” and “Cards – All Levels – International.”
- Run them in the order you want to print and mail. Each output file is now a single group. The order inside each file may still be arbitrary, but the groups are already separated, which is usually what matters.
This also helps when levels use different card stock or designs. Each file goes to its own printer tray or vendor job, and nobody has to sort anything.
The downside is upkeep. When you add a new level, you need a new query and a new process, and it is easy to forget one. Once a quarter, check that the per-level runs together cover everyone who should get a card. A query of all members due for cards, compared against the combined counts from each run, will show you any gaps.
Option 2: Sort the export afterward
When the process produces a file for a mail merge or a print vendor, you can sort that file in a spreadsheet before it goes anywhere. This is the quickest route for a one-time mailing, and the only practical one for sorts that go several levels deep (country, then postal code, then last name).
A few things to watch for:
- Make sure the column exists. If the card output doesn’t include level or country, you can’t sort by it. Check whether your card format or export lets you add those fields. If it doesn’t, add a lookup ID or constituent ID to the output, run a separate query with level and country, and match the two in the spreadsheet.
- Keep ZIP codes as text. Spreadsheets love to drop leading zeros. Import postal code columns as text, or New England addresses will mail with four-digit ZIPs.
- Check blank countries. Domestic addresses often have an empty country field, so they sort together at the top or the bottom. Decide whether a blank means your home country, and fill it in before sorting.
- Don’t edit names or addresses in the file. If you see a typo, fix it on the constituent record in Altru and rerun. Otherwise the correction disappears the next time you print.
Sorting by country for postage
Separating international members usually comes down to postage and handling, not looks. Many teams split them into their own run (Option 1) so the international cards can be weighed, stamped, and sent on their own, while domestic cards are sorted by postal code for whatever presort discount your mail house offers. If you work with a mail house, ask how they want the file sorted. Many prefer to do the postal presort themselves, and your only job is to keep domestic and international apart.
Which approach to choose
- Cards printed in-house on different stock per level: separate runs per level.
- One file sent to a print or mail vendor: one run, then sort the export, or let the vendor sort it.
- Small monthly batches: sorting the export is probably faster than maintaining several processes.
- Large renewal-season batches: separate runs are worth the setup because they cut down on handling mistakes.
Whichever you choose, write the steps down where the next person can find them, including which selections feed which process. Card runs tend to be handled by whoever is newest on the membership team, and an unlabeled set of copied processes is hard to figure out a year later.
