Search Builder

Search Builder Facts and Tips¶

Videos¶

These training videos cover Search Builder:

Search Builder Basics
Search Builder Deep Dive - Status Flags, building searches, and troubleshooting
Search Builder Conditions (Contributions)

Facts¶

Save: You can save searches that you want to run more than once.
Public: Check the Public box to let other users run a search. When another user changes its Conditions, the changes are made to a copy, not to your saved search. However, other users can use the Pencil icon on the Saved Searches page to change its name or Public setting.
Private: New saved searches are private by default. Only you and users with the Admin role can view them.
My Searches: Your list of Saved Searches is displayed on your Home Page in the bottom left corner under My Searches. Click on any search to run it, or click the header My Searches to see all of your saved searches in Search Builder.
Blue Toolbar: The Blue Toolbar is available to use with the search results. This allows you to send emails, run reports, export Excel spreadsheets, and more.
Lay leaders: Search Builder is not limited to staff. Users with the OrgLeadersOnly role can create and run searches, but the results include only people in the Involvements they lead, even if other people meet the Conditions.
Finance: Conditions on the Contributions tab return results only for users with the Finance role. Without it, the search returns 0 people and does not show an error.
Search Results: All search results will display the same information, regardless of your search conditions. Use the Blue Toolbar to run reports.

Sample Search Results¶

Tips¶

Build Incrementally: Building searches incrementally means that you add one condition, run the search, add another condition, and then run the search again. With Auto Refresh, this happens automatically. You will see the results change as you add conditions. This will help you know if you are building it correctly.
Think: For complex searches, plan the results you need before you start. For example: are you looking for people based on their attendance or on their enrollment (you can find people who ‘attend’ an event even if they are not ‘members’ of the Involvement). Is age a factor? If you are going to email people about an event for adults, add an age condition. Also, if you use Resident Codes in your database, use those to find people in the local area when advertising events that are at your church, and not online.
Test: Test your search by looking at a few of the records in your results to ensure that they indeed fit the conditions you expected. Search Builder applies each Condition exactly as written, so check that the logic matches your intent.
Troubleshoot: If the results are not looking right, you can work backwards to isolate the problem. You can disable one condition at a time by selecting Disable Condition on the Gear icon menu on that condition. With that condition disabled, you can run the query to see what the results would be without that condition in the query.
Help: Be sure to notice the description on each condition, and click the ?Help Article button beside it for more information. The article explains how to use that Condition.
Filtering Saved Searches: When you access the Saved Searches page, you have several options to determine which searches you see in the list. Example: only your searches, only status flags, etc.

See also

Saved Searches

For an introduction to Search Builder, see the main Search Builder article.