Reducing the Number of Asks in an Export

Hello, everyone!


When exporting gifts in a constituent export, we often have to go to the "Filters" tab of the "Gift Criteria" window and use a gift query. Sure, the Gift Criteria window has a lot of great ways to select and sort gifts (campaigns, funds, appeals, query, amount, type, date), but sometimes we have a set of criteria that's complex enough to justify a query (especially when needing to use the <ask> function). Sometimes, we don't know what these values will be ahead of time, and the date ranges we use almost never fit in with the preset values (this month, last month, last quarter, year to date, etc.).


Additionally, within the "general" tab of the export, we have to use a query with the "include" button. This query will be a constituent query, and it will basically be an exact duplicate of the gift query mentioned above. We want to display gifts meeting X criteria, and we only want to export people who have given those gifts meeting X criteria (otherwise, the export will try to output every donor in the system). It feels like we're having to set up the same query twice.


Therefore, if the gift query has any <ask> fields in it, the constituent query will, too. Sometimes, when running a query, we have to enter in the same "ask" values 2, 4, 6, or even 8 times before the export will run. Has anyone else encountered this issue? Has anyone found ways to work around it?


Thanks a lot!