Basic Concept of Searching

Basic Concept of Searching

Sumac has powerful searching capabilities. You can find anything in your database; contacts, donation information, client and volunteer data, memberships, tickets, everything!

This article will guide you through the basic concepts of searching in Sumac. It covers: Basic searching features, Search Criteria and Operators, Searching in Lists, and Searching with Multiple Criteria. It also shows examples of some common searches.

 

Effective searching brings many, far-reaching benefits:

1. Focus. Communicate with exactly the best group of people on any particular issue, so your constituents see only communications that are relevant to them.

2. Analyze. Look at your data from many different angles, combinations, and perspectives to gain insight.

3. Assess. Report and focus on what really matters.

 4. Enhance data. Search to find data inconsistencies, then clean them up in bulk.

 

Once you've mastered searching, you'll be amazed at what you can do. So, let's get started!

Each list in Sumac stores a particular type of data. The Contact List holds information about contacts, the Donations List holds donation records, the Communications List has communications.

 

When you're trying to find certain things in your Sumac database, search for it within the appropriate list. For example, if you are looking for contact data, find it by searching in the Contacts List. If you are looking for donation data, find it by searching in the Donations list. If you are looking for membership data, search in the Memberships list.

 

Let's start in Contacts.

Searching features work the same way in every list. The Search panel is located at the top of the list window.


In the Search Panel, notice the Search Type drop-down menu. This lets you access the different search criteria available for the list you're looking at. In the Contact List, the Search Type dropdown menu has search criteria relating to contacts, like contact types, communication preferences, or even specific fields within the contact record.

 

Let's do a search with only one search criterion: find our Board Members. In most Sumac databases, board membership is recorded as a contact type, so we choose Contact Type.

 

That shows a second drop-down menu where we choose which Contact Type we're interested in finding. Choose Board Member.

 

Click Search.

 

And Sumac produces your list of Board Members!

 

Another common single-criterion search looks for contacts with a particular communication preference. For example, perhaps you need to find everyone who wants your newsletter.

Choose the Search Type: Communication Preference, then choose the Communication Preference: Newsletter, and Click Search.

 


Search with multiple criteria

When searching using multiple criteria, you need to use a connector in your search. These connector words connect search criteria together to create more precise searches.
The most common connectors are 'AND' and 'OR'. Let's review when each connector is appropriate. 
  1. Using an AND connector means that the results must satisfy both the criteria in your search.
  2. Using an OR connector means that the search results must meet either the first criterion, or the second criterion, or both.

AND connector

When you link search criteria with an AND connector, Sumac finds only the results that satisfy both the criteria in your search. For example, perhaps you need to find contacts who donated in the last month and attended your last event. Because the criteria are connected with an AND, Sumac finds only contacts in your database who did both things. Contacts who made a donation in the last month, but did not attend your last event, will not be included in the results Sumac finds.

OR connector

When you link search criteria with an OR connector, Sumac finds results that meet either the first criterion, or the second criterion, or both the criteria. For example, perhaps you want to find contacts who donated in the last month OR attended your last event. Because the criteria are connected with an OR, Sumac finds contacts who did either, or both things.

Let's look at a couple of examples starting with contacts who live in Chicago or New York.

Select Search Type = Field, the Resident City is equal to Chicago. Click the + sign to add a connector. 

 

Because you want to find contacts that includes people living in New York and Chicago, you need to select the connector  OR to retrieve a list of contacts in New York or Chicago.




Now select Search Type = Field, the Resident City is equal to New York. Click Search. 

 


It seems counterintuitive to select OR to find contacts in New York or Chicago, but you can't have a contact who lives in New York and Chicago at the same time.  So rethink the sentence as "I need a list of people. They need to either live in Chicago OR they need to live in New York!
OR often returns a larger list than AND.  As an example, let's say 500 people attended your Gala, and 100 people made a donation last month. Of those people who made a donation, 50 also attended your Gala.

If you use the connector AND you would be asking for people who both attended the Gala and made a donation last month.  That would return a list of 50 people.  

If you use the OR connector, you would be asking for people who either attended the Gala or made a contribution last month.  That would return a list of 550 - the 500 Gala attendees, plus the 50 donors last month who are not already included as Gala attendees.