On Friday 11th September a new release of the Salesforce.com nonprofit starter pack was made available. Steve Andersen, a Solutions Architect at the Salesforce.com Foundation, who helps nonprofits organisations use Salesforce.com, recommends that “everybody upgrades“.  The full article can be read on the NPSP Announce (a Google Group) – the article has many links including how to install the nonprofit pack, and release notes.  For administrators of the nonprofit pack this Google Group is well worth you joining.

The full release notes for Salesforce.com Winter ’10 can be found here (a pdf document) (note there’s no explicit reference to “nonprofit” in these release notes).

If you haven’t already found it there is a very thorough introduction to the Nonprofit Starter Pack on Salesforce’s Developerforce wiki.  In this wiki you will find details on the purpose for the nonprofit pack, some links to descriptions on its functionality, a list of the packs Strength and Weaknesses, some notes on how to deal with Individuals, some notes on installation issues, and a link to Feature Requests and Wishlists.  In particular there’s a link to Nonprofit Starter Pack Upgrade Best Practices.

In the first instance you should find out which version of the Nonprofit Starter Pack you already have.  There’s an excellent short video by Steve on YouTube just for this.

The developerforce link has the following advise for when you are considering upgrading your version:

1. Always back up your data before upgrading packages
2. Burn a sandbox of your production database and upgrade the sandbox first, checking for any errors
3. Upgrade Contacts and Organizations package first, then Households, then the others
4. Spend extra time testing if you have written any Apex code or have Workflow rules to make sure they don’t conflict with package features
5. Carefully follow any special instructions provided on the individual package install pages

Now, item 1. should be a given.  Your Administrator should be doing at least a Weekly, or Monthly (if you have a very low data volatility), backup.  To access this function follow this menu chain:

Setup | Administration Setup | Data Management | Data Export | Export Now or Schedule Export

(Do remember to have, and follow, some well documented good practice for naming, storing, and verifying your backups!)

If you’ve never used a Sandbox (item 2.) they’re well worth exploring – not the least for testing new Applications, for training, and for checking upgrades.

To create a Sandbox follow this menu chain:

Setup | Administration Setup | Data Management | Sandbox | and click New Sandbox

Click on the link and read the Help for this page!  Do give your Sandbox some appropriate short name – as Salesforce automatically appends the sandbox name to usernames and email addresses … So if you name your sandbox upgrade, and your login username is user@company.domain, then your login for the upgrade sandbox is user@company.domain.upgrade (but use the same password).  You will see a reminder, like Force.com Sandbox: Upgrade, near the top right of your page so that you know your you’re in your Sandbox.

The generation of the Sandbox can take some time – so don’t leave it until the last minute on Friday afternoon to explore Sandboxes!  You’ll receive an email from Salesforce advising you of its availability.  Do note there is no direct way to replicate any modifications you make in your sandbox in your “live” instance – you’ll have to re-install the App’s, adds those customised fields, redo the workflows, …

Finally, the NPSP – Nonprofit Starter Pack on Google is another valuable site to bookmark.  Here you can find a community, supported by Steve, for airing your problems with your instance of the nonprofit pack.

I hope something in the above is of some help to you.