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Automatically remove trailing spaces and double spaces entered via Web Forms

We are constantly running into issues with trailing spaces and double spaces in our data that have been entered online via the Web Forms. Users/donors will commonly input a space after one of the name or address fields and occasionally they will also input a double or even triple space between their street address and an Apt #. These extra spaces are not being trimmed or removed when that data is being carried over into Altru causing issues with query outputs as well as name, addressee, and address formatting on printed letters, labels, emails, and other merge fields using these data fields. It would be ideal if any leading, trailing, double, triple, etc spaces could be identified and removed automatically after the user has submitted their info, but it doesn't not appear that is currently being done.

Anyone currently using Altru and donor submitted Web Forms is likely having this issue. I have built a query to identify these on a weekly/monthly basis and fix this bad data manually, but this process is time consuming and not ideal.

  • Lance Henze
  • Feb 28 2022
Best Practices
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  • T. Rash commented
    09 Aug 19:26

    Still have to do this manually. An extra space after the last name (i.e. space Smith) will make it alphabetically before all of the other Smiths, making it harder to locate.

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  • T. Rash commented
    27 Feb 17:48

    I can't believe this doesn't drive other people crazy. When there is an extra space after the city, it will show as Tulsa , OK in the mailings. Extra space after a name will make it be John and Sue Smith. Looks very unprofessional!

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  • T. Rash commented
    March 02, 2022 21:00

    I currentlyu go into each record and change this by hand -- as well as the people who put their address in all caps, or all lower case, various abbreviations of street names, or a strange mix of all which causes Altru to create a new account for constituents already in the database. (Then, of course, I also have to merge the accounts.) Very time consuming!

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