Performing an Advanced Search

You can use the advanced search to pare down your list of contacts to those who fit certain specified criteria that you provide. The Advanced Search tool is located in two places:

• People > Contacts > Search Contacts > New Search
• Messaging > Broadcasts > New Broadcast > Recipients

This article will also provide examples of searches with increasing complexity.

Search Contacts

When you first come to People > Contacts > Search Contacts, what you see will depend on whether or not you have saved searches. If you do, you will see a chart listing them, with options to either view/edit a saved search or perform a new search.

Click on the name of a saved search to view the search criteria, edit the search, or even download a csv file of the search results.

To edit a saved search, go to People > Contacts > Search Contacts, and click on the saved search you want to change. Click on the pencil icon next to the title of the saved search to display the search parameters. You will be given the option to update the same search or save it as a new one.

If you perform a new search, you will see blank boxes for search criteria, as shown below.

Use any of the options to search for the contact(s) you want to find. You may differentiate on any of a variety of standard and custom fields as well as legislative districts or participation in given campaigns. Just select the options you want from the dropdown menus and click search to see a list of your results. You can edit or delete any records among the results.

If you need a csv file of the search results, simply hit the download icon. You will then receive an email with a link to download the file.

Here is a short video detailing how to perform an advanced search.

Broadcasts

When you are sending a broadcast to your supporters, elected officials, or to congressional staff, you can perform the same sort of search to pare down the list of email recipients. On the Recipients page of the send message wizard, opt to use an advanced search to filter your recipients. You will see the same advanced search that exists in Search Contacts.

Note that any search performed when looking for recipients of a broadcast will automatically exclude unsubscribed contacts, contacts with invalid emails, contacts without emails, or contacts who share emails with other contacts in the list.

Search Examples

The advanced search tool uses standard Boolean logic, so you can add as many criteria as you wish, but you will want to use as few lines as possible to state those criteria. Also, adding an “or” between lines creates an entirely separate set of criteria. These will come into play in the following examples:

• All contacts who have been active in the system
• All active contacts who have addresses in certain districts
• All active contacts in certain districts or all association staffers
• All active contacts in certain districts or all association staffers who answered a survey

All contacts who have been active in the system

For this simple search, enter the terms “contact type / is exactly / registered.”

All active contacts who have addresses in certain districts

Now add a second line by pressing the plus icon and set the new terms to “districts / constituent of / [multiple].”

Any time you want to look for multiple values within a single search field, click the “multiple” button rather than adding multiple line in the search. When you do, you will see a pop-up that allows you to choose the appropriate values. You will then need to change the operator to “constituent of any” or “contains any” to make sure you are looking for contacts who have any of the listed values as opposed to all of them.

All active contacts in certain districts or all association staffers

Click the “OR” link below the search, this will create a new set of search terms. Enter “staffers / is exactly / yes” in the new line.

Using the “OR” means that the first set of terms is independent from the second. This search is looking BOTH for active contacts in certain districts AND ALSO staffers who work for your association, NOT active contacts in certain districts who also work for you.

All active contacts in certain districts or all association staffers who answered a survey

You can also add more lines to the new set of search terms. Click the plus icon on the third line and enter “surveys / participated in / [name of survey].”