Car A is driving northeast at 35 mph and Car B is traveling northwest at 45 mph …

Published

Does building groups give you flashbacks of trying to solve complex word problems? In my last blog post, we met our friendly database manager, Wilhelmina, who had just learned how to leverage Raiser’s Edge reports to build queries. Lately, she’s been getting increasingly complex query requests and was starting to feel like she was back in math class.

Luckily, Wilhelmina learned about two additional Raiser’s Edge features that can help her build complex groups: Query Merge and Query Lists. At first glance these features may look similar. And there certainly is some overlap in functionality. But both possess powers of their own! Let’s see what Wilhelmina has learned about these features and view examples of how she’s used them.

Query Merge

Can be used with any type of query, but the 2 queries you are merging must be the same type
Can merge only 2 queries at a time
Resulting records are grouped in a new query – when you merge 2 queries, you get a third query
Can add records, subtract records, identify overlapping records and either remove them or include only those that were in both groups

For a previous effort, Wilhelmina had created 2 queries: Records Sent January Direct Mail and Records Sent April Direct Mail. Her organization now plans to send a July Direct Mail, and she was told the groups from those previous queries should be included, but no one should get a third direct mail piece. Wilhelmina used the XOR operator to merge the two previous groups and got the records who received either of the previous pieces but not both. She named the group July Direct Mail Recipients – Step 1.

For another effort, Wilhelmina had configured 2 queries: Records With Total Giving Last Calendar Year of $500+ and Records With Lifetime Average Gift $100+. She has since been asked to identify the records that exist in both of these groups, for a special invitation her org plans to send. For this effort, Wilhelmina used the AND operator to merge the two groups and get the records she needed.

Query List

Can be used with only constituent, individual, or organization queries
Is based on a single query initially
Once created, can then add or remove records found in other queries
Can easily add or remove specific records
Keeps a log of changes to the group and the number of records included

Wilhelmina needed to finalize the group of records for constituents who will be sent the July Direct Mail piece. She opted to build a new query list based on the July Direct Mail Recipients – Step 1 query she’d already created. Then she added a query named Records Who Contributed to Annual Fund in Last 3 Years. Even though some records were already in her query list, the Raiser’s Edge system won’t add a record to the list again (no duplicates!). She also added a query that groups all Trustees. Then she was asked to remove the board members. Luckily, Wilhelmina already has a query that groups board member records, so she easily removed them from the list. And then the Director of Development and the Major Gift Officer both asked to be added to the mailing (even if they did not qualify in previous groups), so Wilhelmina added them both to the group. When Wilhelmina saw her own name in the list, she removed her record. Finally, Wilhelmina saved the list and was ready to create the file for the mail house.

Stay tuned to learn about other Raiser’s Edge tools that Wilhelmina can leverage to streamline tasks.
Want to learn how to get more out of Query? Sign up for the Raiser’s Edge: Expert Data Segmentation with Query course today!

News Raiser's Edge® Blog 05/28/2021 6:00am EDT

Added by Naomi Harding

1 Comments

Jana Fross Jul '22

There is something strangely satisfying when you build and run complex queries! :)

Naomi Harding Dec '22

Absolutely, Jana! It's like finishing a challenging puzzle or word problem ?