Getting help in the app

Help lives in three places: this help center, the assistants, and tickets to a person. All human support is by email; there is no phone line.

Help & support

Help & support at the bottom of the sidebar opens a page with:

• Ask the assistant: the in-app Ask DonorFinch chat (below).
• Send us a message: a ticket form. Pick What is this about?, give a Subject and describe the problem. Your organization and role are attached automatically and replies go to your sign-in email, usually within one business day.
• Setup guides: links to the how-to articles.
• Your tickets: every ticket you've opened, with its status (Open, Waiting on customer or Resolved). Open one to read the thread and Add a reply; replying to a resolved ticket reopens it.

You can also open a ticket without signing in from the help center; you'll be asked for your name, email and organization.

Ask DonorFinch

A chat button sits in the bottom-right corner of this help center, the marketing site and the app. It answers from these articles only. Inside the app it also sees a read-only, aggregated status of your organization (counts and flags such as "Stripe connected", "3 plans past due", the last payout; never donor names, card details or per-donor amounts), so it can tell you where you are in set-up or which screen to open.

What it can't do: change anything in your account, look at a specific donor or payment, or answer questions outside DonorFinch. For disputed, failed or missing payments, refunds, data problems and legal or tax questions, it hands you to a person by opening a ticket on your behalf; you'll get the confirmation email and the ticket appears under Your tickets.

Every answer lists the articles it came from. If an answer is wrong or unhelpful, click Wrong or unhelpful? Flag this answer; flagged conversations are reviewed by DonorFinch staff and the articles are fixed. Use the Start a new conversation button to clear the thread.

Set-up helper

New organizations that haven't finished set-up see a Set-up helper instead of Ask DonorFinch. It walks through the six set-up steps (account, organization details, Stripe, donation form, installing the form, optionally QuickBooks), knows which ones you've completed, and points you to the right screen. Once set-up is done it becomes the regular assistant.

The assistants are turned off in the live demo organization.

Who sees your conversations

Chats are stored so flagged answers can be reviewed, and every request runs under your organization's identity, so the assistant can never describe another organization. See Security and your data.