Their membership system had no way in. We built one.

Cadmium and Rasa both have an API, which is a supported way for software to exchange data, so the connector talks to them directly. The membership system has none. For that one, the connector signs in and uses the same screens a staff member would: it reads the reports, looks up each organization and contact, creates the ones that are missing, and registers them for the event. Data moves both ways, out of the membership system to the newsletter and into it from event registration.

It started in 2022 as one nightly sync and has grown to four. NHA staff run it from their own admin screen, where they choose which reports feed the newsletter, upload any attendee spreadsheet to be registered, and review a short list of records the connector could not place by itself.

The first newsletter sync loaded about 7,000 contacts and has run nightly since. Event registrations now reach the membership system four times a day, where the vendor's upload service took days. When the connector cannot match a person or an organization with confidence, it puts the record on a list for staff instead of forcing a match, so their time goes to the handful that need a decision.

Because the connector can register people from any spreadsheet, NHA also uses it for events that never touch the registration system. The work has continued for four years, one sync at a time, as the team found the next piece of manual entry worth removing.