Extraction vs. List

Lists are faster and easier.  But you get a few of things out of Extractions:

• There are a large number of tools to help you build customer communication lists with Extractions
• It is easier to exclude records by using suppressions rows
• You can segment extractions, which allows you to easily pull different, unrelated groups together, but also to see where they were picked up with the counts
• Since Extractions run concurrently, you can build really large complicated queries that won't bog down your client for a long time

One difference between the two to never forget is that Lists automatically screen out Inactive constituent records, while they must be manually suppressed from Extractions.

You can, of course, use Lists in Extractions (as you can use Lists in other Lists), and you can save Extractions to Lists.

I was just talking about this with a new staff member!  Way, WAY back in the day, someone at Tessitura told me that Extractions were like List Manager on crack.  Now I think about it as: Lists are for simple and quick, and Extractions are for heavy duty.  I'll use Lists if I just want a quick general count of something, and Extractions are where we do all of our e/mail lists.  

JM Huck said:

I'm wondering if you could share how you use lists, versus how you use extractions.

I usually only use Extractions only if the data will be associated with a promotion, or is being extracted for use in an external system. Lists to my mind are any group of constituents I might ever want to refer to again, for any purpose, though if I want that grouping to be visible/query-able in the client I might assign the List members an Attribute and toss the List. 

I have a very specific feeling about lists and extractions (segmentations). 

Lists are a cluster of Constituent IDs. Often they are defined by a small set of parameters eg:,  having seen a show,  not in a particular etc. They are often used to filter a utility, graph or report

Extractions are an ordered series of criteria designed to cluster people in a hierarchy. Extractions often start with a standard suppression (another extraction that you import). The following lists form segments that catch constituents in little pools like water flowing down stream. That's why I like to talk about it as a waterfall. If a Constituent is caught upstream then it won't appear again in a down stream pool. It's great for planning whole appeals and campaigns. It can be used for conditional blocks in emails if you want to talk to different groups in different ways. 

But please, if at all possible, never make an extraction that is just a series of other lists suppressing each other. It's my pet hate. It's impossible to extract logic from and ends up being a bunch of circular illogic.

What a great analogy - the waterfall! Makes so much sense to picture it that way!

Hi Kathleen. Is there someone on your advancement team you could connect me with? We are moving over to predominantly use extractions, which I have only used once. Pointers for newbies would be appreciated (LYBUNTS, SYBUNTS...). Thanks, couldn't seem to private message you because of an error with the conversations feature.