Improve Your Constituent Searches

When you search for constituents, the search criteria that you enter on the Constituent Search screen directly impacts how long it takes to get your search results. For best results, we recommend that you are selective in your search criteria and that you enter detailed information. By providing detailed search criteria, you help to ensure that you get your search results in a timely manner.


In addition to this general rule, we also recommend that you consider the following tips before you enter search criteria.

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• For the fastest search results, enter just the constituent's ID in the search screen's Lookup ID field.
  
• If you don't have a lookup ID, entering just a name in the Last/Org/Group name field is nearly as fast as the Lookup ID field.
  Note: When you enter search criteria in both the Last/Org/Group name and ZIP/Postal code fields, search results are a bit slower. The combination of fields is useful for common last names, but you may want to search by just the last name for less common names.
  
• If you place wildcards at the start of search fields, the search screen cannot use indexes and, therefore, search results are much slower. We recommend that you avoid wildcards at the start of search fields, especially the "%" and "*" wildcards that replace multiple  characters.
  
• If you select Include fuzzy search on name, search results are noticeably slower. This checkbox is useful when you are unsure how to spell a name or suspect your spelling may not match the constituent record. However, when you are confident about how to spell a name, we recommend against using this checkbox.