How do I find a contact?

You can search for contacts in a number of areas. If you are searching the entire database, your top 2 options will be the Quick Search that appears in the upper right of your screen or the Contacts module.

Quick Search

The Quick Search is available on every screen, so if you need to quickly find a constituent, you don't need to leave what you're working on.

Click in the field located in the upper right corner and type the contact's name. (You can type the name in either of the following formats: First Last or Last, First.  You can also search by phone number by typing "Phone:" followed by the numbers). Up to 4 contacts will display with contact information and small colored badges indicating the number of correspondence activities (green), cases (orange), flag requests (red), or tour requests (blue) they have. Contacts will be listed in order based on the most recently accessed contact. Additional names will appear below. Clicking on any name will open that record.

• If you have a long list of contacts and do not see the contact you are searching for, click the See More Results link. This will take you to the Contacts module where you can refine your search, view all contacts, and work with multiple records at a time.
• If you need to create a new contact, select the Create Contact or Create Organization link.

Contacts module

Searching in the Contacts module allows you the option of searching by multiple criteria, working with more than one record at a time, and saving activity defaults for correspondence data entry.

• Click on the desired filter option, type the keyword into the field, and click Find.
  
  TIP: The % sign is a "wild card" character, so if you are unsure about part of your keyword, you can use the % sign in place of the characters you do not know. For instance, searching for Name "%field" will bring up contacts with the last names of  Smithfield and Greenfield. Searching for Street "%Main%" will pull up 1234 Main Street as well as 527 Alamain Way.
  
  
• You can add other criteria to create an "AND" statement and narrow your search down. (If you add two of the same type of criteria, you will create an "OR" statement and broaden your search results.)

• You can filter out results using Change View.  

• When your results appear, you can work with them individually by clicking on the contact's name, or you can work with multiple contacts at a time by selecting them and using the buttons on the upper right:
1. Assign: The Assign button allows you to add or remove a personal code from the selected contacts. (If you select "Advanced," you can also change flags like gender, restricted, allow combine, and non constituent.)
2. Create Activity: Create a correspondence activity for the selected contacts. The "Create Activity" form has the added functionality of saving defaults. If you are doing a lot of data entry, you only need to fill out the form once and then search for your contacts. Each time you create an activity, your saved defaults will automatically be assigned.
3. Merge Envelope or Label: Merge envelope or label with the selected contacts in Word.
4. Save Filter: Save a search for contacts based on the filters you applied. (Saved searches can be used for sending mass mailings, exporting large lists, printing a large number of envelopes or labels, etc.)
5. Export Selected/Export All: Export a list of the selected contacts or all of the contacts that appear in your search results into an Excel spreadsheet.
6. Combine: Manually combine the selected contact records into one record. No information is lost.
7. Duplicate Check/Household Check: Run a duplicate or household check on just the selected contacts, and then combine them if desired. (See "How do I run a duplicate or household check?" for information about running a system-wide check.)
8. Mass Mail: Send a mass mailing (either by print or email) to a list of contacts.
9. Send to Gateway: This feature is only available fore Gateway eNewsletter subscribers. Feature allows you to import the selected contacts directly into the Gateway eNewsletter to create a new list or add to an existing list.