Mailing List

Tyler Barham

Can someone send me step-by-step query instructions for building a mailing list? I've tried to do it as a query, and under “Mail” but I keep getting duplicate records and/or the list is including people who are marked as Do Not Send Mail. Thanks!

Kylea Johnson

You'll want to create a base query then use the “export” module to get a mailing list out. That will take care of a lot of those issues. Query is really no good for anything but looking at data. You'll want ‘export’ if you want clean data to distribute.

Also keep an eye on this issue with the ‘not’ operator that has only recently caused issues for me like ‘do not mail’ folks being included in mailings.

Heather MacKenzie

Hey Tyler, there's also some good documentation and how to stuff to be found at

Heather MacKenzie

I've never used the Mail module for this, so can't help you there, but Query tips…..

Make sure your criteria is good and tight. You can use either a gift type query or constituent type query to get your records gathered. If you're using a constituent query, but basing your criteria on gift information, you will end up with duplicate rows in the query, which is okay, because as Kylea mentioned, export will remove those for you. I find doing my mailing list in multiple steps the best - gather my mail to group and then subtract (either by using a query list or merging queries) the do not mail, inactive and so on who are already grouped into a second list.

Good luck!

Faith Murray

Short and simple, you (almost) never output a mailing list from Query. You group your list in Query but then output it in a linked Export. Export eliminates all duplicates, plus it has many more fields available: for example, you can output multiple phone numbers, emails, solicit codes, etc. with complete control over which ones are included.

The reason Queries will give you duplicates is any time you include a field in Criteria or Output that can have multiple entries. For example, if one of your criteria is Phone Number, and a Constituent has 4 phones, then that constituent will appear 4 times on your Results list. If you select “Interests” Attribute one of “Events” or “Tours”, but a constituent has both attribute descriptions, then they will appear twice. The only way to avoid duplicates is to stick to fields that have only one possible entry, such as Constituent ID, Address Processing, Primary Addressee, etc. Depending on the criteria you are trying to pull in your Query, that can be difficult to manage while still getting the group you want. That is why, in almost all cases, outputting your list under the Export tab of RE (not the Export symbol within the query itself) is best.

Jeannie Goings

@Faith Murray, Bravo on the explanation using query vs. export.