Creating and Managing Custom Reports

Beyond the standard customizable donation report that you can create on GiveCampus, you and other GiveCampus administrators also have the ability to create unlimited custom reports. 

By using custom reports, you have the flexibility to capture specific fields in the exact order you want, either for regular reporting or one-time use. To create custom reports, go to Online Giving > Reporting > Custom Reports.

The main capabilities provided by custom reports are the ability to:

1. Share custom reports among school-level administrators.
2. Edit or delete the report(s) they created (others cannot delete yours)
3. Clone a report created by you or a team member
4. Rearrange additional fields in whatever order is desired
5. Break out multiple affiliations into their own report column
6. Split multi-designation gift information into separate columns or separate rows
7. Define column header aliases to match your expected output

Each of these is explained below:

1. Share Reports Among Administrators

When a custom report is created by one administrator, this report becomes accessible to all full level administrators within an institution. These reports can be found on the main “custom reports” tab.

2. Edit or Delete Your Custom Reports

A custom report can be edited by the report creator or a user with fundraising superadmin privileges. To edit a custom report that you created, click the pencil icon.

Important: any changes to the columns in the report will take effect immediately.

 

When a custom report is created, it can only be deleted by the administrator who created it. This is to ensure that administrators do not accidentally delete each other’s reports. To delete a custom report which you created, click the trash icon and confirm deletion.

3. Clone Any Custom Reports

If there is a custom report to which you would like to make a slight tweak without reinventing the wheel, you can simply “clone” your custom report. To clone a report, click the copy icon.

4. Rearrange Additional Fields

Previously, all administrator-created additional fields were stored in the 'additional_fields' column. Now, you can select specific additional fields to have their own columns and arrange them in any order within your custom report. All available fields appear on the left side of the Columns page in the custom report builder, organized by category.

International reporting columns now available in Gift Info

Five Gift Info columns are now available to support international and foreign-gift compliance reporting. These fields are located in the Gift Info category in the Columns picker when building or editing a custom report.

Which columns to look for

• payment_country — Card-issuing country for Stripe card payments. Values are ISO country codes (e.g., US, CA, GB). This field is populated only for Stripe card charges and remains blank for ACH, PayPal, and Spreedly payments.
• value_usd — The gift value normalized to USD.
• value_orig_currency — The gift value in the donor’s original currency.
• currency — The original currency code for the gift (e.g., USD, EUR, GBP).
• country_taxpayer — Country of residence or taxpayer information associated with the gift.

How to add these columns to a report

1. Access your custom reports section in the admin area.
2. Open an existing report or click New Report and go to the Columns page.
3. In the left column picker, expand Gift Info and drag the desired international columns into your report column list.

Where these columns appear in admin settings

These fields also appear in the Gift Info column list within the admin area, allowing you to verify their availability. Including these columns in your report provides key data for international gift tracking by capturing the payment country, as well as the gift amounts in both the original currency and USD.

Post‑payment form custom fields in custom reports

Schools can add a short question to the post‑payment (or thank‑you) form—such as a T‑shirt size or gift selection—and capture the data in a custom report.

Steps to add a post‑payment custom field to a report:

1. Go to Online Giving > Reporting > Custom Reports.
2. Open an existing report or click New Report and navigate to the Columns page.
3. In the report builder, locate the form field in the left sidebar under its appropriate category.
4. To quickly find a field, type its exact name (for example, 250_thank_you_item) in the Columns search box.
5. Drag the field into your column list (or click to add it). When the report runs, the column header will match the field name from the form.

Tips:

• If you need a different column header (for CSV import or CRM mapping), use the Report Column Aliases tab to set a school‑level alias.
• If the field does not appear, verify that it was correctly saved on the post‑payment form and that the field name is spelled correctly.

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Billing address fields: street vs. city/state/zip

Billing address data is stored across multiple fields. The street address is kept separate from the city, state, and ZIP components.

What each field contains:

• Street address: Use the mail_address field, which consolidates street/line‑1 and line‑2 from donor-entered data or processor-supplied billing lines. This field is found in the Donor Info category.
• City, state, and ZIP: Add the addr_city, addr_state, and zipcode fields to capture these details.

Steps to build a complete billing address report:

1. In Online Giving > Reporting > Custom Reports, open or create the report you want to edit.
2. On the Columns page, add the mail_address field from the Donor Info category.
3. Add the addr_city, addr_state, and zipcode fields.

Tips:

• Do not omit the mail_address field if you need the street address.
• The contents of mail_address depend on the data the donor or processor provided, so it may be blank if no street address was captured.
• Use the Report Column Aliases to rename these fields so that exports match your CRM’s requirements.

5. Separate Affiliations into Report Columns 

Standard donation reports include an 'affiliation' column that shows a donor's selected affiliation. In custom reports, you can create separate columns for each affiliation type.

When you separate affiliations into individual columns, they display different values: for affiliations with class years (like "Alumni"), the column shows the specific year (e.g., "2018"); for affiliations without class years (like "Friend"), the column shows "TRUE."

If a donor hasn't selected a particular affiliation, that column remains blank—for instance, if someone identifies as "Alumni," their "Parent" column will be empty.

Note: For donors with multiple affiliations but no class year entries, the column will display "[]" rather than "TRUE" to match the selected_affiliations column format.

6. Split multi-designation gift information into separate columns or separate rows

If you are leveraging multi-split designations you can now create custom reports that have split gift information broken out by either report columns or rows. 

• Gift Row Report: Split designations will be represented in multiple columns. Be sure to select all 15 fields named designation_name_#, designation_backend_#, and designation_amount_#. 
• Designation Row Report: Split designations will be represented on their own rows in the report. Be sure to select the designation field when building your report.
• Note: Additional gift value associated with donors covering payment processing will be listed in an additional row but will not have a designation listed.

 

7. Define column header aliases to match your expected output

To change the name of the column headers so the report file can be easily loaded into your CRM, for example, define column aliases to rename the default GiveCampus field names.

Define a column alias by visiting the “Report Column Aliases” tab of Custom Reports and clicking “New Alias.” Select which default column name you would like to rename and provide a new name (alias) that will be used in the corresponding files.

Quick access and scope for column aliases

• Location in admin UI: Online Giving > Reporting > Custom Reports > Report Column Aliases tab
• Direct URL pattern: https://www.givecampus.com/schools/{school_name}/admin/reporting/custom_reports/aliases

Column aliases let you rename default GiveCampus field names so that your exports match your CRM’s requirements. Aliases are applied at the school level—once saved, any custom report that includes the field will use the alias as the column header. From that point forward, exports from existing or new reports containing that field will reflect the updated alias.

If your file requires a blank column (for formatting purposes), select “blank column” as your default column name.

FAQ — How do I add deposit-related columns (datetime_of_deposit, date_of_deposit, stripe_deposit) to a custom report?

• Location: The datetime_of_deposit, date_of_deposit, and stripe_deposit fields are found in the Gift Info category of the Columns picker. These are Stripe-only fields, so they will only populate for gifts processed via Stripe.

• Field details:

  • datetime_of_deposit: The date and time when funds were deposited into the school account.
  • date_of_deposit: The date of the deposit for daily reconciliation purposes.
  • stripe_deposit: A unique identifier that links all donations included in a single deposit.

• How to add these fields:

  1. Navigate to Online Giving > Reporting > Custom Reports.
  2. Open an existing report or click New Report and go to the Columns step.
  3. In the left-hand column picker, expand the Gift Info category or type the field name in the Search Columns box to locate the desired fields.
  4. Drag each field into your report column list (or click to add). Save or run the report to include the fields in your export.

• Additional related fields (Stripe-only) in Gift Info:

  • refunded_at: Date and time of a refund
  • datetime_of_refund_recovery: Date and time when refund funds are removed from the account
  • refund_recovery_transfer: Transaction identifier for the refund recovery
  • refund_reason: Refund reason code
  • stripe_refund: Identifier for the Stripe refund

• CSV/CRM mapping tip: Use the Report Column Aliases tab (Online Giving > Reporting > Custom Reports > Report Column Aliases) to define a school-level alias if you need a different column header in your export.

• Troubleshooting:

  • If you cannot find a field, enter its name (e.g., datetime_of_deposit) in the Search Columns box.
  • Including both date_of_deposit and datetime_of_deposit can be useful: one for daily reconciliation and one for exact deposit timing.

 

Custom Report Templates

GiveCampus also provides a set of pre-built templates to help you start using custom reports right away! Learn more about report templates in this article.

Troubleshooting Large Report Downloads

When Donation Reports Fail to Download

If you're experiencing failures when trying to download donation reports, particularly for forms with large amounts of data, this is typically due to the report size exceeding front-end processing limits.

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Email download link option for large reports

For users experiencing large report download failures, GiveCampus support can enable a feature that emails a download link instead of processing downloads directly in the browser. This feature bypasses browser processing limits and timeouts that cause download failures. The feature needs to be enabled by GiveCampus support on a per-user or per-school basis.

Once enabled, reports will generate an email with a download link rather than downloading directly.

What this means and when it helps

• Use this option when a report consistently times out or your browser fails to finish a download for large files. Because the heavy processing happens off the browser, the email link avoids front-end timeouts.
• The emailed link provides the same report file (CSV) you would receive from a direct download; the primary difference is delivery via email rather than in‑browser streaming.

Limitations and practical notes

• The feature is applied per-user or per-school, so availability depends on whether it has been enabled for your account or institution.
• The email delivery step replaces browser processing but introduces dependency on your institution’s email delivery (for example, spam filters or attachment policies). If email delivery is restricted, expect the same troubleshooting steps you take for other administrative emails.
• Because this flow bypasses front-end limits, it is especially helpful for very large reports or environments with strict browser memory/time limits.

If you still see failures

• Try narrowing your report (fewer columns, smaller date range, or segmented exports) to produce a smaller file.
• If smaller exports succeed but large ones fail and the email link option is not available for your account, note that GiveCampus can enable the emailed-download feature on a per-user or per-school basis.

Common symptoms:

• Report download attempts fail repeatedly
• Error messages when trying to generate reports
• Reports that worked previously now fail

Solution: Email delivery for large reports

For large reports, the system can be configured to send reports via email instead of browser download:

1. Contact support if you experience repeated download failures

2. Support can adjust your account settings to use email delivery

3. Once configured, reports will be sent directly to your email address

4. This method is more reliable for large datasets

Why this happens:

• Large reports can exceed browser processing limits
• Email delivery bypasses these technical constraints
• This is especially common with comprehensive donation reports covering extended time periods