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RealmMinistryPlatformPDSACSAccountingGivingConnectShepherdGrowth MethodGo MethodMissionInsiteGatherHeadMaster ChildcareTrust Center
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Personal Views (Advanced Search)

Editing Complex Views

Learn how to edit complex views, including how to add fields to your complex view and additional considerations like permissions, complex comparisons, and more.

You can edit views that you created or if you're in the view's user group. To make changes to your personal view, find it in the views drop-down list, and click the Edit button beside the view.

When you open the views, you may receive the following message: "System was not able to parse and recognize some of the expressions in the field list and filter clause! Do you want to continue?". This means you have SQL in your view that can't be edited by the point-and-click method. Click OK for the Advanced Search Tool to change your SQL to a form it can edit. This erases any custom SQL written for the view. Use this option if you don't need the custom SQL and want to edit the view using point-and-click. To keep the custom SQL, click Cancel.

Add Fields to a Complex View

To add fields to a view that already has custom SQL, follow this procedure to use the point-and-click method to select fields and keep your custom SQL.

Copy Fields to Add:
  1. Go to the page with the view you want to edit.
  2. In the views drop-down list, open the All Records view.
  3. Select the fields you want to add.
  4. Click the SQL Layout tab.
  5. Copy the SQL in the Field List section.
  6. Close the view and click Proceed. You don't need to save.
Add the Fields to Your Complex View:
  1. Switch to your view and click Edit.
  2. Click Edit.
  3. Click Cancel when you get the "System was not able to parse and recognize..." message.
  4. Switch to SQL Layout tab.
  5. Paste in the fields. Be sure to add a comma before the first field you paste so there is one between each field.
  6. Click Save Query.

Additional Considerations

Permissions and Fields

To add a field from a related table, a user must have at least read access to that page. If they can only see the record ID, adjust the user's rights. For more information, see View Permissions.

Use IN for Complex Comparisons

To achieve the same functionality as an OR statement, use the IN option. For this example, we want to include the Team Member and Team Leader group roles in our view on the Group Participants page.
Note: Add comparisons to views/Advanced Search using the AND operator.
  1. Look up the record IDs for the criteria you want to add.
    Go to Church Structure > Group Roles. Open the Team Member group role and see that the record ID is 6. Open the Team Leader group role and see that the group role record ID is 7.
  2. Go to the page with the view you want to add or edit.
    Go to People Lists > Group Participants.
  3. Open the view drop-down list and click Edit next to the view you want to edit.
  4. In the line with the appropriate record ID, select IN from the second comparison drop-down list.
    In the Group Role ID line, select IN from the second comparison drop-down list.
  5. Enter the record ID number in the Search Terms field. To add more than one instance to this filter, separate the numbers by commas.
    6, 7
  6. Click Save Query.
The view filters that field by the search term you included. For this example, the view includes results with a group role ID of 6 or 7, so it includes results for team members or team leaders.
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Last updated: November 14, 2025