I'm cleaning up my database in preparation for our first mailing using RE and I know that there are a lot of records missing the addressee and salutation. I thought I would do a query where all addressees and salutations = "blank", but the output does not return any results. Is there a step I'm missing? I've been doing other queries for this project and haven't run into a problem. Also, once I determine who is missing an addressee and salutation, is a global change appropriate or should I do these manually? Thanks for any help! Lori Del Nero Administrative Assistant VNA/Hospice of Monroe County East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania [Email Removed]

Lori, I created a constituent query and for criterea I entered "Primary Addressee" = "Blank" and got results. Is this the approach you are using? Beth Palmer Director of Development Gaston Day School Gastonia, NC 704 864 7744 X224

Lori, I created a constituent query and for criterea I entered "Primary Addressee" = "Blank" and got results. Is this the approach you are using? Beth Palmer Director of Development Gaston Day School Gastonia, NC 704 864 7744 X224

That actually is what I did, but for some reason nothing comes up. I did a complete query including ID, name, primary addressee, primary salutation and address, and there are probably 250 or so records that come up in that query with blank spaces for the addressee and salutation. I can't figure out why this wouldn't work the same for only the blank items. I can export my complete query into Excel, then sort and determine the blanks - just thought doing a query on them alone would be faster. Lori Del Nero Administrative Assistant VNA/Hospice of Monroe County East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania [Email Removed]

Ok now I'm confused - having 250 records come up is diggerent from getting no results. If your criteria says that the primary addressee is blank then in your query results the addressee column will be blank - that is ehat you asked for isn't it? Melissa S. Graves Manager, Development Database & Direct Mail Planned Parenthood of Connecticut [Email Removed] 203-752-2804 *** Sorry my typing is not what it should be!

Lordy my typing really stinks today - sorry. Melissa S. Graves Manager, Development Database & Direct Mail Planned Parenthood of Connecticut [Email Removed] 203-752-2804 *** Sorry my typing is not what it should be!

No - I'm sorry, I should have specified that I ran two different queries. First was only for constituents with a solicit code = yes. Output was ID, name, addressee, salutation, and address. It lists anyone who has a record with a solicit code = yes, regardless of their address/salutation status. This is when I noticed that approximately 250 records had no addressee/salutation. Rather than export this as a report and sort it to locate the ones missing addressee/salutation, I decided to run another query - this one ONLY being primary addressee and salutation = blank. THAT query returns no results. Obviously, there is something wrong with the query, because I know for a fact that many are indeed missing the addressee and salutation - but not all of them. Lori Del Nero Administrative Assistant VNA/Hospice of Monroe County East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania [Email Removed]

Lori, Your problem may be the use of AND; as in Primary Addressee AND Primary Salutation = blank. With AND you will only get records that have both of these blank. Unless you know this to be the case, try using OR (Primary Addressee = Blank OR Primary Salutation = Blank) and see what happens. Sometimes I just do one of these at a time.ie Just run a query for Primary Addressee = Blank. Fix those and while doing that, check those records for blank salutations. Then run blank salutations double checking for blank addressees. That should get them all. HTH, laura Laura A. Caswell Information Technology Worcester State College Worcester, MA 01602 [Email Removed] (508) 929-8867

Hi Lisa, I did try changing to OR, however I did not try and run them one at a time. I'm 99% sure that the records in question are missing both, so if I can get one to run, I can most likely catch all that are missing the info. Thanks for the tip! I'm assuming that my only safe way to update the addressee/salutation will be one record at a time (ugh)? I know I could do a global change, but there are some cases where I don't know if the constituent is male or female and, to be on the safe side, would rather not choose Mr. or Ms. to as to not offend anyone. Lori Del Nero Administrative Assistant VNA/Hospice of Monroe County East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania [Email Removed]

Is it possible that one of your add/sals is conditional and is showing as blank when the condition is not met but is really not blank. Maybe you should be looking for constituents who have that add/sal type. Open one of the records you identified as being one that appears blank and drop down the menu. Are you at the top of the list or are you in the middle? Melissa S. Graves Manager, Development Database & Direct Mail Planned Parenthood of Connecticut [Email Removed] 203-752-2804 *** Sorry my typing is not what it should be!

Once you identify the blank records in a query, I WOULD recommend adding the add/sals by global function, given your looking at a few hundred records. Once you complete the global change you can query on them again & the ones that didn't come out right will be very apparent. Then you can go back into those individual records & fix them manually. I suspect there won't be many that will need changing, if your data entry is consistent. Tracie Cassidy Database Coordinator Seattle Children's Hospital Foundation (206) 987-6833 [Email Removed]

I did a spot check on several of the records in question and they are truly blank. There has been almost nothing done to the records as they were being kept in an Excel spreadsheet up until we purchased RE. They have only been imported within the past couple of months and we have made no further changes to them. I received some information that in some versions of RE, this was simply a "quirk" - so maybe that's the case. I will most likely go ahead with the export into Excel and sort to determine which informaton is missing. Nothing deveastating, I was just hoping to avoid a big production, however changing each record will be a production all in its own :-) Thanks! Lori Del Nero Administrative Assistant VNA/Hospice of Monroe County East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania [Email Removed]

Lori, I had a similar problem recently and it turned out that it was a known issue in version 7.6x. I can't remember exactly what version it was, but we found out by searching the Knowledgebase. Upgrading to RE7.7 fixed the problem. So you might want to check what version you're on. Once the query problem was fixed I found that importing addressee/salutations worked well. If you want more info on that, feel free to contact me off the list. Kathi Martin Columbus, OH [Email Removed]

Here's something you can try. Export the following fields to Excel - ID, Addressee, Salutation. Sort by Add and Sal, then delete any records that are not blank. This will leave you with a list of IDs. Go to Admin>Import. Select Update Existing Records and select the Excel file. Under fields, link the IDs together. On the last tab, check the box for Create Output Query and run the Import. It won't change anything in RE, but it will give you a static query of all the people with blank Add/sals. Then you can global change or edit as you like. Gavin Gourley Global Partnerships 206-652-8748 [Email Removed]

Gavin, That's a slick trick. I had written a VBA macro to do the same thing. I'd still suggest [u]backing up[/u] before doing the import. The import still indicates that it is updating records, even though it's a 'phantom' update - I'd feel better about seeing that with the backup in hand. Tom Luongo [Email Removed] Boston, MA 617-852-7350