Query Qualities: Halloween Edition
Happy Halloween, everybody! Well, almost Halloween, anyway - there's still another day before it's time to light Jack O'Lanterns, put on costumes, and go trick-or-treating - but there's nothing wrong with celebrating a day early 
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Halloween is a day for ghosts and goblins and other really scary things. One thing that scares people in The Raiser's Edge is duplicates in query. Like a movie monster, query duplicates leap out and scare you when you least expect them. You don't have to be afraid of query duplicates; they appear in your results because the record either meets the query criteria multiple times or the query output includes one or more one-to-many fields. When you save the query and use it in an export, report, or mailing, each record is included only once. In other words, your database isn't haunted with mysterious duplicates, it just looks that way.
Query is one of the most popular topics in The Raiser's Edge. Besides Why are there duplicates in the query results (which includes a demo video), here are the five most popular query solutions in Knowledgebase from last quarter:
- How to query on constituents' total giving within a date range (also includes a demo video)
- How to troubleshoot incorrect query results in The Raiser's Edge
- How to create a query from an Excel list of constituent or Import IDs
- How to query on gift batch number
- How to query on soft credits
Of course, those solutions can be pretty confusing if you don't understand the basics of query. If you're a new user, or are just rusty on the basics, you can take a free query class with Blackbaud Learn. Blackbaud Learn is an annual subscription that provides ongoing skill development and job training for software users. Course offerings range from basic training for beginners to advanced training for experienced users, and new classes are added every month.
The complimentary online class is called Query Essentials for The Raiser’s Edge. Enter the promo code “FreeQuery” on the registration form when you sign up and you'll be on your way!
Enjoy your Halloween weekend and remember to set your clocks back on hour!