Orgs & People Extract
Location in standard build: Reports > Data Extraction/Mail Merge
Data Extractions provide a way to export data about organisations/people stored on the system. You can choose:
- which types of organisation/person you want information about
- whether to filter these people (for example, only display people who live in a certain district)
- which fields should be displayed on the output (if applicable)
Within the Data Extraction feature, you can create extractions that send the relevant people to a Mail Merge.
Click on the menu item to see a list of the Data Extractions currently set up on your system, if there are any. Click "Create New Export" to create a new one, or click on the name of an existing one to edit it.
"Who To Extract?" tab
By default, Data Extractions include Clients and ignore other organisation/person Types. If you want to look at other organisation/person Types, click on the "Who To Extract?" tab.
If you choose to Exclude a certain Type, this will override the Included ones. For example, if you Include Clients and Exclude Volunteers, Clients will be Included, but anyone who is both a Client and a Volunteer will be Excluded.
If you select Not Relevant, this simply means that that Type will not affect the output; organisations/people with only that Type will not be shown, but organisations/people with that Type as well as another one will not be excluded either.
Selection Criteria tab
On the "Selection Criteria" tab, there are various settings that relate to the way this data extraction will behave.
- Definition name - the name of the data extraction, which will be displayed on various screens.
- Description - displayed on the main list of data extractions.
- Name for "Save As" - this will be used if the data extraction is used to create a spreadsheet.
- Export to a Spreadsheet or Create Mail-merged Letters/Emails? - this is where you choose the destination for this extraction. The choices are:
- Export to Spreadsheet - produces an Excel spreadsheet which you can save to your computer for further use
- Send to Blue Folder Lookup - this will take the data from the data extraction straight to Charitylog's Blue Folder Lookup page, where you can manipulate the data and also add other data - for example, you could use this method to add information from another Data Extraction to the output of this one.
- Batch Send SMS Messages - creates a batch of SMS text messages to the people identified by the data extraction. You will need to have Textanywhere set up to use this feature.
- Merge With - Standard Letter Templates will be named here. You can create batches of letters or emails (depending on the way the template in question is set up).
- Send letters or emails (based on 'preferred method of communication')? - click "Expand" to show this section.
This option only applies to quite a specific scenario. For the option to be applicable, you need to be using the "Preferred Method of Communication" field on the Details Screen to keep a record of peoples' communication preferences, and you need to be merging letters/emails using a Template that is set to produce Letters or Emails based on that preference. The options are:
- Create letters for all (ignore preferences)
- Create emails for all (ignore preferences)
- Create letters (only for non-email recipients) - i.e. anyone who has an non-email method named as their Preferred Method of Communication will not be included in the merge
- Create emails (only for non-letter recipients) - the opposite; anyone who has an email method named as their Preferred Method of Communication will not be included in the merge
- Create letters and emails (use preferences)
For each Method there is a field which can be set - "Is this an email method?". This field governs whether someone using that method as their "Preferred Method Of Communication" should be included in the merges or not. The option of "create emails (only for non-letter recipients)" should really be called "Create emails (only for email recipients".
- Suppress Letters When Client Requests It? - this relates to a setting in Contact and Consent Rules. If set to "No", mail merges will create letters for everyone even if they have the "Suppress Letters on Mailmerge Extract" option set to "Yes" in their Contact and Consent Rules area.
- Suppress Extract of People Whose Preferred Contact Method is Email? - this setting is purely included for our customers who want to export data to Excel for mail merging. The assumption is that you might want to create emails from Charitylog but letters from Excel.
- Include This Extract in Mail-Merge Audit? - if set to "No", mail merges created with this configuration will not be shown in the Letter History Report.
- Hide 'Anonymous Client' records - this refers to organisation/person records created using the "Record a Contact (for an anonymous client)" feature. These are created with a flag that marks them as "Anonymous", so even if they have been given some level of identifiable data - like a name or a postcode - they are still marked as "Anonymous". This setting lets you decide whether those people should be included in a data extraction/mail merge. or left out.
- Merge "Related and Partnered" Clients and Send Single Letter to Both - people who are linked using the Relationships Screen have a preference which tells the system to only send one letter rather than two if they are both present in a mail merge. This is useful for partners etc.
- Active Records Only? - defaults to "Yes". Refers to the Active Field.
1. Choose Selection Criteria (optional)
If you click the "Choose Selection Criteria" button, you can introduce filters for the data extraction based on the standard fields in the system. For example, you could choose to only extract data for clients within a certain set of postal districts.
- These filters only apply when the data extraction (or mail merge) is run from this screen. If the data extraction is applied on a Blue Folder Lookup page, these filters will not be applied.
Clicking on the button will take you to the "Mail Merge Criteria" page.
You can now set up your filters. First choose the field you want to filter by, and once you have chosen it, you will see a popup where you can pick the options to use for your filter. (options for "Postal District" shown)
The filters default to "equals" (or "in (this,this,this)" which is the multiple version of "equals"), but you can change the criteria. The options are:
Options intended for use on any type of field
- Equals
- Not Equals (does not equal)
Options intended for use on number fields
- Greater than
- Greater than or equal to
- Less than
- Less than or equal to
Options intended for use on text fields
- Text begins with
- Text contains
- Text does not contain
Only for use with drop-down lists:
- In (this, this, this)
After you "Save Details", another line will appear. You can add as many criteria as required, and each subsequent line can be an OR line (which would widen the results) or an AND line (which would narrow the results).
The screenshot below shows rules that will extract data about people who are male, 50 or over, and live in the North or West postal districts.
2. Choose what to print
You need to choose some data to print. This step is not optional - even if you are producing a mail merge, which doesn't take fields directly from whatever you specify here, you will need to choose at each one field.
If you are producing a data extraction on a spreadsheet, each option you choose here will be displayed in a column on the spreadsheet.
Clicking the button will show you a list of standard fields that you can choose to display. You can order them in the default order, or alphabetically, by clicking the buttons in the top right hand corner.
3. Export The Results
Clicking this button will run the data extraction. Different things will happen, depending on which option is selected in the "Export to a Spreadsheet or Create Mail-merged Letters/Emails?" field.
Rob Kay - manual author (talk) 13:48, 12 January 2017 (GMT)
