A Searching Question...

Hi Andrew

Tried to think up some scenarios covering issues that currently make searching tricky for us:

·         Separation of Customer-related and transactional/order searches

·         Working with Filters, Aliases, Attributes, Lists

·         Lack of control of the fields presented in the Search Result.

1.       Mia the Education manager wants to search for all the Drama teachers employed at the schools in the outer-west region, but only if the school has current unpaid orders for her schools programs.

In the search result she wants to see the teacher's personal email address and phone info, together with the school’s mailing address together with a list of the open orders.

2.       John the ticket sales rep wants to search for all customers who paid with cash for tonights performance of La Boheme.  He also wants to see the details of any co-subscribers or companions attending, sorted by surname within postcode.

3.       Nicole the Opening Night coordinator wants to search for staff of the major sponsors invited to tomorrows opening night who have home addresses in the selected postcode areas and who haven’t rsvp’d. She wants to see their associated employer name or business address in the results.

Go on, make Mia, John and Nicole's day ...

First, the example with the university is a big one!  Something that we struggle with for both universities and corporations.

Other scenarios:

The box office manager needs to search for everyone who has the wheelchair price type to check that they are seated in the proper areas for their specific needs.

The volunteer coordinator doesn't remember the name of the volunteer she spoke with this morning, but knows she will recognize it if she could just search by everyone with the volunteer constituency.  (filtering is great if you have something else to search for...)

Other business cases:

Patron A calls the box office and their parents are "sits with" subscribers of Patron B. They don't know Patron B's name, but they want to make sure they have tickets for tonight waiting at will call. The box office needs to be able to search by Patron A's name, but pull up people associated with Patron A as well.

John Smith emails us to ask to be removed from the mailing list. Unfortunately, he's written back from his work account and not the account we have on file. We do, however, promote all our eNewsletter and if the front desk could filter 'John Smith' search results on that promotion, they might be able to find the account quickly.

I always wished that you could make 'templates' for searching, covering what/how you search and what is returned.

For example I want to see all Press who are Reviewers (what is currently a constituency /attribute combo) with the last name of smith in a postcode range. What I see returned is my Press Template where I have opted for a specific type of address to show.

If I am in Subs mode I have a template for that where I only want to see specific types of associations (sit with or companion)

The templates are set up as drag and drop from the available fields and you set the values where appropriate ie association type.

What I'm hoping this template will remove the current set up where colour coded results are returned for when accounts are an alias of what you searched for or a contact etc.

Oh yeah and you can switch between template during the search by just refreshing your "view", or add adhoc output to your template and just refresh to see it updated.

To be able to drag and drop the returned columns after a search to change their order and all the returned columns are to be sortable on the fly as well.

In an odd way the searching setup wouldn't be that must different to the logic behind list manager, and what would be great is if from the constituent search you had the option to make a list/output it. The output option would be a security right you could have ...

Just my 2cents worth ;-)

S.

The Box Office Manager has received a check in the mail.  It is from school district #279 and she knows it is for a school order.  However the check doesn't indicate the order number or the school name.  She needs to be able to search by district name or number or contact name, amount due, and perhaps visit date if that is indicated. We can do some of this in pieces right now, but not all together. 

Aah, the good old days of playing match that check (and hoping against hope you were applying it to the correct order!).

Martha the Subscriber brings a friend (Carly) to the Concert performance, and introduces her to Alice the Development Manager.  Martha tells Alice that her friend has attended the Symphony before, and is a potential major donor with connections to several corporate boards.   Alice goes back to the office and wants to search for Carly and quickly identify all of her connections and relationships, both to other constituents within Tessitura and external connections available in online information, as well as mentions or appearances of Carly in other online materials and networks.   Alice wants to view the results visually so she can quickly guage Carly's potential as a prospect and get a quick sense of who she might be able to recruit to assist her in soliciting Carly.    For a good example of this, see the Muckety Map at muckety.com

Jane has a museum membership at the family/dual level.  Because she is widowed and lives alone, she shares her membership with her friend, Joan.  Jane receives an invitation to a members-only event at the museum.  She is unable to attend but passes the invitation on to Joan, who RSVP's on behalf of herself and her neighbor Sally.

Sandy the concierge receives the RSVP.  She needs to find Joan in the system, verify that she is indeed a member (under Jane's membership) and enter the RSVP for Joan and sally.

When the event rolls around a couple of weeks later, Joan has the flu, so Sally attends with her friend, John.  When Sandy the concierge greets them at the door, she needs to find Sally in Tessitura and verify her event RSVP.

So I'm wondering (semi-seriously) why John and Sally get to attend what you described as a "members-only event"

The hotly anticipated Out of Joint production Mixed Up North descends south on its nationwide tour from Tue 29 Sep – Sat 3 Oct whilst, moving East from the West End is, the smash hit musical Never Forget featuring the songs of Take That on the Derngate stage from Tue 6 – Sat 10 Oct. For more information and to book visit www.royalandderngate.co.uk or call 01604 624811

The Northampton Theatres Trust Ltd Registered in England and Wales. Company Registration No. 3640915. Registered Office: Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road, Northampton NN1 1DP

That makes sense.  Thanks!

So I think I'm hearing that we need to search on more than what we would consider "constituent data" and go into even some transactional things.  Or maybe we're searching for different things all at once and not just constituents--constituents and orders and payments, etc. etc.  I'm also hearing that we should search several levels deep into associations and links.  Maybe simple search and then an advanced option which presents all sorts of possibilities?

And combine what we think of as constituent search and what we currently know of as order search plus maybe searching for other types of entities all in the same place.

Please keep commenting!