Filter the Data in Reports
Choose which PDS data is included in your report.
Setting the appropriate selections
- Sort Order – Determine the order in which the records in your report are sorted. The options change based on the type of report. For example, you may want to sort a family report by IDs, whereas a personnel report may be sorted by Position. Your selection depends on how you plan to use the report.
- Email the Letter If and Send to Multiple Emails – Determine whether to email or print a letter based on certain criteria. For more on these options, see Emailing a report.
- Include Billing Copies – Print or email billing copies to an alternate address, to multiple addresses, or to other people as a courtesy copy. To do this, the Billing Address window must be filled out for the family's fund record(s). For more information, see Send Billing Copies.
- Include Separate Statements – Print a separate statement for a family member who contributes individually. To do this, the member must have an ID number. For more information, see Send Separate Statements.
- Skip Families That Do not Have Any Selected Funds – Exclude families from your report if they don't contribute to the funds you selected for this report. If the purpose of your report is to only show families who have a certain fund, you should select this option.
- Include Family Marked as Loose Collection – Decide whether your report should include the "loose collections" record, which is how you track non-documented donations, such as cash given by visitors.
- Skip if at Alt Address and Send to Alt not Checked – If families are currently residing at the alternate address listed on their record, such as a vacation home, and they are not marked to receive mail there, you can skip them. This way, you don't send mail or email to people who have asked not to receive it during a certain time.
- Fund Restrictions – Limit the families printed in your report to those with a specific fund or funds.
- Include Courtesy Copies – Include families in your report if their statements are set to send courtesy copies in the Statements drop-down list in the Billing Address window for the family's fund record(s).
- Include Family Relationship Courtesy Copies – Include families or individuals in your report who are listed as a relation to the family. These are set in the family's Relationships window.
- Separate Members That Have ID/Env. Numbers – Print separate statements for members who have a Member ID/Env. number (in addition to their Family ID/Env. number).
- For example, if you selected a report that prints families, you'll see a tab for Family Selections.
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If you selected a report that prints members or students, you'll see a tab for Member Selections or Student Selections.
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You may see different tabs in your PDS program. These all function similarly.
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Use the <Record Type> Selections tabs if you want to include a range or a specific group of records. Otherwise, this tab will have Include ALL <Record Types> selected, and the program will instead use the other selection tabs to gather the records for your report.
- Once you make your selections, if you plan to use these exact selections again in the future, click Save under List of Selections.
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Rename your New Selection to something that describes the selection and will make sense to other PDS users, such as "Current Church and School Families" or "Members who get Separate Statements".
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You can click Reorder to organize your saved selections for your convenience. We recommend keeping Simple Selection - Never Saved at the top of the list, since this is one that is used by default for all reports.
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See our video resources for report selections. Click here to watch in the Video Library:
Filtering based on date or date range
- For reports dealing with funds, you'll need to enter the date range to print. This can be part of the fund period or the entire fund period. This is set in the same window where you select the funds to print in your report.
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For any report, you can use Additional Selections to define a date or date range. Use any date field related to the information in your report to set this. For example, if you're running a family report and want to only include families who registered in a certain time frame, you could use the Date Registered field and define it between two dates.
Using Additional Selections
- Additional selections rely on a field that's common to all the records you want to include or exclude. For example, need your report to list only families in Phoenix, Arizona? Use the City field from family records. Need a financial report for a specific fund activity? Use the Activity Name from fund records. Any data that you track in PDS can be used to filter your report.
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Once you know the field(s) you want to filter by, you can add the condition. On the Additional Selections tab, click Click here to add new condition. This opens the field list where you'll select the field to filter by. This list is organized like the data tables in the program. To search for a field you know the name of, click Find at the top-right corner of the list, and enter part of the field name. Click the information icon
beside a field name to see its description.
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After you select the field, select the conditional relation; in other words, define how closely you want the field on records to match in order for the record to be included in your report. The options vary based on the field you selected. For example, if you selected a numeric field, you'll have options like is greater than or is between. If you selected a text field, you can match the entire value in that field exactly using is equal to, or select contains to look for the value you entered anywhere inside of the field.
Conditional Relations:- Is equal to—Field = Value. Ex: City is equal to Phoenix.
- Is not equal to—Field ≠ Value. Ex: State is not equal to Arizona. This relationship is useful when you want everything other than a specific value.
- Is less than—Field < Value. Ex: ID is less than 3000.
- Is less than or equal to—Field ≤ Value. Ex: ID is less than or equal to 3000.
- Is greater than—Field > Value. Ex: ID is greater than 3000.
- Is greater than or equal to—Field ≥ Value. Ex: ID is greater than or equal to 3000.
- Is in list—The field is within a list of values or within a CSV file. If you list the values, each must be in quotation marks and separated by commas. If you specify a CSV, it must start with "<", followed by the file path. To specify a certain column in the CSV, enter a comma after the file path then the number. Ex: City is in list "Phoenix", "Glendale". Ex: City is in list <C:\Documents\cities.csv,3.
- Is not in this list—The field is not within a list of values or not within a CSV file. Each value must be in quotation marks and separated by commas. If you specify a CSV, it must start with "<", followed by the file path. To specify a certain column in the CSV, enter a comma after the file path then the number.
- Starts with—The field has the same beginning character(s) as the value in question. Ex: Name starts with A.
- Does not start with—The field has a different beginning character(s) than the value in question. Ex: Zip does not start with 85.
- Contains—The field includes the value. Ex: Email contains "hotmail". This returns a list of all family email addresses that include the word "hotmail".
- Is not between—The field falls outside of two values. Ex: ID is not between 300 and 800.
- Is between—The field falls between two values. Ex: ID is between 300 and 800.
- Is ever equal to—The value in the field is equal to at least one of the fields entered. You could, for example, enter three conditions: Ministry is ever equal to Choir, Ministry is ever equal to Hospitality, and Ministry is ever equal to Baby Sitting. When you run the report, if Ministry is ever equal to Choir, Hospitality, or Baby Sitting, the member's name is included in the report.
- Is never equal to—The value in the field is not equal to one at least one of multiple fields entered. You could, for example, enter two conditions: Sac. Confirmation is never equal to Yes, and Sac. Confirmation is never equal to Approximate. When you run the report, if Sac. Confirmation is never equal to Yes or Approximate, the member's name is included in the report.
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Finally, you'll define the field's value for your condition. Depending on the type of field you chose, you'll either be able to enter a value or select one from a list. For example, if you selected a field that has a predefined list of values (like a keyword), you can select one. If you selected a field where you enter text or a number, you'll need to enter that text or number. If you selected a date field, you can select a date from the calendar.
Example of keyword field Example of text/number field Example of date field -
Want your report to print the opposite of a selection? For example, maybe you want your report to list all families except those who live in Phoenix, Arizona. Create your condition(s), then select Exclude rather than include the selected records at the bottom of the Additional Selections tab. All items that match the given conditions are excluded, and the rest are printed.
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We recommend you select Use Optimizer at the bottom of the Additional Selections tab. In most cases, this improves the speed with which PDS searches for records that match the conditions you set.
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Also see our video resources on additional selections. Click here to watch in the Video Library:
Checking your selections
- In the selections window at the end of the report process, click Review Selections.
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If this is your first time using this process, read through the Instructions tab to understand how it works.
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To review individual records, go to the Matches/Skipped tab. Or, to search through all the records, click the View the Entire List tab. For an in-depth explanation, see Review Report Matches.
Example of matched record Example of skipped record -
Also see our video on reviewing report selections. Click here to watch now: