Using the Report Settings window

The Settings window enables you to restrict the records that will be retrieved for the report by designing a "Criteria" or query statement. You have tremendous flexibility with these queries, and can create very complex statements to precisely control which records are found and displayed on the report.

The window will contain two or more tab pages, depending on the report you have selected. At a minimum, the General Settings tab and the Report Criteria tabs will be available. The General Settings tab is used for details like the report title and sort options, while the Report Criteria tab is used to restrict the records that will be shown by the report.

This tab contains various general options for the report that do not affect which records are returned.

Report Title - If the report contains an editable title, you may change it here.

Sort Order - If the report sort order can be changed, you may change it here. (Some complex reports, such as reports with built-in grouping levels, have a preset sort order that cannot be changed.)

Address Format - If the report contains an address block, this field enables you to choose the address format to use for the report.

Label - When printing mailing labels, this field enables you to choose the label format to use. (If you need to use a type of label that is not listed, contact us to request a new format.)

When this Report is Selected in the Future - This setting essentially determines whether or not this settings window should open the next time you run this report. If you choose to run the report immediately, the report will be automatically displayed using the current settings. If you want to change the settings, you can still do so by clicking the "Settings" button on the Reports window. This is helpful of you do not normally need to adjust the report settings.

Report Criteria is what actually controls which records will appear on the report. Will the report show every member, or perhaps only members that live in "Boston?" Maybe you want to see every member with an End Date in the next 30 days, because they need to be contacted for renewal. Maybe you only want members who attended a particular activity on December 15 in a role of "sponsor" who have made a donation in the last 10 days and are NOT part of the widget analysis committee. The possibilities are nearly endless, and very powerful.

Criteria is created row-by-row, with each row representing another criteria (you can think of it as a "rule") that must be true for a given record to appear on the report. For example, if you are running a membership report and use a criteria like, Last Name = Smith, then only membership records with "Smith" in the Last Name field will be on the report.

The criteria also list includes options for left and right parenthesis, and a logical AND/OR option for joining rows of criteria. These options make complex queries possible, but also make it possible to accidentally retrieve every membership record when you only wanted one or two. It is very important to look carefully at the positioning of parenthesis, especially when using an OR option.

The advanced criteria list includes options for left and right parenthesis, and a logical AND/OR option for joining rows of criteria. These options make complex queries possible, but also make it possible to accidentally retrieve every membership record when you only wanted one or two. It is very important to look carefully at the positioning of parenthesis, especially when using an OR option. For example, consider this criteria:

This will require a state of Texas, and either a city of Mytown or a city of YourTown, because the AND refers to all of the criteria grouped by the parenthesis. However, if the parenthesis were omitted, the criteria would look like this:

This can produce unpredictable behavior, because now it essentially says, "state of Texas and city of MyTown, or the city of YourTown without regard to the state". Thus, records could be returned for YourTown, Washington, and YourTown, Oregon, as well as YourTown, Texas.

% The percent sign is used in conjunction with the word "LIKE" to search for data that begins, ends, or contains specific text or numbers. For example, if you selected Last Name as the field, and LIKE as the operator, you might enter any of the following in the Value field:

You can also use the opposite of LIKE, which is NOT LIKE, to reverse the search requirement.

If you are comfortable with the concepts of LIKE and NOT LIKE, the following table provides several advanced examples of ways to use wildcards and expressions for even more precise queries. Note that each expression below would be preceded with LIKE or NOT LIKE.

Expression	Searches for...	Sample Return Data
Mc%	Names that begin with the letters "Mc"	McEvoy
%er	Names that end with "er"	Brier, Miller, Weaver, Rayner
%en%	Names containing the letters "en"	Pettengill, Lencki, Cohen
_ish	Four-letter names ending in "ish"	Fish
Br[iy][ae]r	Brier, Bryer, Briar, or Bryar	Brier
[M-Z]owell	Names ending with "owell" that begin with a single letter in the range M to Z	Powell
M[^c]%	Names beginning with "M" that do not have "c" as the second letter	Moore, Mulley, Miller

As illustrated above, the % (percent) symbol will be replaced by any number of characters, whereas the _ (underscore) symbol can only be replaced by one character.

Text within brackets ( [ ] ) will be required unless preceded by the carat (^) symbol, in which case the text is disallowed.

When using MemberTies Professional, if you use address fields as part of your criteria, i.e., "City = MyTown", and your membership records often include multiple addresses, you may want to use a special criteria field called "Address to Use". With this criteria, you can tell the report which address you want it to look at when matching the City value.

If you don't use this criteria, the system will automatically assume you want to use the Current Address whenever it needs to look for address data. That means if a member has a Home Address in "MyTown" and a Summer Address in "YourTown", the record won't be retrieved unless the Home Address is marked as Current on the membership record.

These two checkboxes are available on membership records in case you want to use them as report criteria. You may select either of these fields for criteria if you wish to use them. If you do not use them, i.e., if you don't include the "Include on Reports" criteria, it won't matter whether the checkbox is selected or not on a member record.

When printing the Liability Waiver report, this tab enables you to change the text of the waiver statement.