Selection Fields

Selection Fields

Selection fields allow you to filter the records that will be included on your report. Each report has a series of selection fields you can use (the available fields depend on the report you are running).

Note: See Selection Criteria for Reports for details related to criteria logic.  The information in that section is important to understand in order to generate reports with more accurate content.

Choosing selection criteria is not the same as actually selecting the fields that will be included in your report results. The fields on the report will be the same, regardless of your selection criteria -- but only records that meet your selection criteria will be included on the report. For example, if you are running a Profile Listing report and add the (Profile) Birthdate field to your selection criteria, only Profile records that match the date(s) you select will be included on the report.

Another way to think about Selections is in terms of how you want to limit which records you will see on the report. You can choose to include or exclude records based on the selections that you make.

Note: If you do not make any selections on the Selections tab or the Affiliations tab, the report will return all records in the database that apply to the selected report. For example, if you run a Profile Listing report, and do not make any selections on the Selections or Affiliations tabs, every Profile in the entire database will appear on the report.

Note: There are several special, User Defined Exports in FIMS that do allow you to select the fields that you want to include on the report. Refer to the User Defined Profile Export, User Defined Gift History Export, or User Defined Application History Export for more information.

In the FIMS Report Selections window, click the Selections tab (this is the tab that opens by default when the FIMS Report Selections window opens).

Example: Selections Tab

Click the drop-down on the upper left-hand side of the tab and select the table (or tab) that you want to select fields from. This allows you to select the desired table and view only those fields (instead of having to scroll through all of the available fields, in all available tables to get to the one you want).

Note: Many reports include a Frequently Used Fields option in the drop-down that shows the fields that are most often included in the report. When you first access the Selections tab, the Frequently Used Fields are displayed by default. You can select from this list or choose the desired table / tab to locate the desired fields.

Select the field that you want to add to your selection criteria from the left-hand pane, and then click the Add button. The selected field is added to the right-hand pane. Repeat this process for as many fields as you want to use to filter your report.

Tip: You can add multiple criteria at one time by holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and selecting multiple items from the list before clicking the Add button.

Tip: If you want to remove any selection criteria from the list, select it in the right-hand pane and click the Remove button.

In the right-hand pane, click in the From and Through fields and enter the range of values that you want records to match to be included in the report.

Tip: If you are only entering one value (the From value is the same as the Through value), you only have to enter the desired value in the From field. You can leave the Through field blank.

If there is more than one selection criteria, decisions about whether you are relating the criteria using And, Or or Not must be made.  These modifications should be made in the Selection Criteria screen.  Click the button in the lower right hand corner to access the Advanced view. Once you have added all of the desired selection criteria, click the Sorting tab to continue setting up the report. Refer to Choosing Sorting Fields for more information.

Tip: Multiple Selection Criteria

If you are choosing multiple selection criteria for your report, you must relate the criteria using either And or Or. The system automatically inserts an Or between repeated uses of the same selection field.  An And is placed in all other situations. 

Relating your selections by using And means that the records must meet both of the selected criteria in order to be included in the report. The more selection criteria that you relate to each other by using AND will usually result in a smaller record selection, because each record must meet multiple criteria.

Relating your selections by using Or means that records that meet either of the selected criteria will be included in the report. The more selection criteria that you relate to each other by using OR will usually result in a larger record selection, because the records only need to meet one of the selected criteria (although they may meet more than one). In most cases, parenthesis should be added around the criteria grouped by Or operators.

Note: You can make choices on both the Selections tab and Affiliations tab. Keep in mind that the relationship for choices between the two tabs can only be AND (it cannot be OR).