Selections and queries

Selection versus query

Selection

A selection is a number of contact persons that is stored under one selection name. A selection is static, which means that the content of a selection will not change over time unless contact persons are actually deleted from the system.

Query

A query is a search definition stored under a query name. A query is dynamic, which means that that content of a query can change over time as more or less contact persons fall under the logic of the search definition.

Selections and queries can be used for sending e-mails to multiple contact persons at one time and in mail merge actions.

Create a selection

Selections are made in the selections page (Contact management > Mailing > Selections). In this page the contact types and the job title information can be used to filter the contact persons and store the result under a name.

Figure 1 Selection page

The contact types and job titles available in the multi select dropdown lists can be subject to the advanced contact type and job title authorization. Read the “authorization” document for more information about the possibilities of this filtering method.

      Attributes

We can use attributes created for contacts and contact persons as extra filter options when creating selections and queries as long as these attributes are of the “domain” data type.

Attributes based on domains with more than two values are presented using a multi select box. More than one value can be selected in these fields by using the control (Ctrl) key. For each attribute the value “none” can also be used for making selections where there is no value set for the attribute in question.

Example: In the image below only contact persons of companies with between 11 and 250 employees are selected where the continent value is not set for the contact.

Figure 2 Selections page with attributes

After the correct filtering is done a selection can be displayed using the “show selection” button. The content of the selection is shown in the page and individual contact persons can be removed from the selection by unchecking the checkbox behind that contact person.

Figure 3 Selections page showing all contact persons

The last step is to give the selection a name. Selection names can contain only letters, numbers, hyphens and underscores. On the right side of the page, existing selections are shown and can be deleted from here.

Create queries

Queries are made in the queries page (Contact management > Mailing > Queries).

As described earlier, selections are static collections of contact persons and queries are dynamic search definitions whose results can vary over time.

In the selection example displayed above, the search was for competitors in North America. Of the resulting 4 contact persons, one was deselected, so the stored selection contains references to 3 contact persons. Each time this selection is used the same 3 contact persons will be used.

Making a query of all competitors in the USA would only store the search definition,”competitors in North America”. Each time the query is used, the database will be searched for this combination again and each time the result could be different as new competitors are entered or new contact persons are added to the competitor contact type.

Figure 4 Queries page showing all contact persons

The only difference between the selection page and the query page is the fact that we can remove individual contact persons from a selection and we cannot do the same from a query. So in the query page the checkboxes behind the contact persons are missing.