When I export members records into XLS files, I would like to choose which fields to export. Now I have to spend time customising the XLS file by deleting columns I don't want. Could we have the option to choose the required fields?

Agree.  Ideally, I'd like the exported list to look like the saved search I created as those are the only fields I need.

When exporting a search to an Excel file it would be nice if only the fields specified in the report settings were exported instead of the entire member record.

I vote yes on this idea.

 

Teri 

OFLA

Please tie Excel exports to the actual generated WA report fields. We do a mailing once a month via an outside mail service and need to send them an Excel file with our current member's name and mailing address. We have a WA report set up to pull this information but currently when you do an Excel export it exports the entire database and someone has to go in and manually delete columns.

I think a good way to implement this would be to add "export" option to saved searches - than each saved search can potentially export specific desired fields and records.

Would  appreciate more input/votes

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

I agree with Dimitry's suggestion... then (as I understand it) the existing export option would remain the same so that all fields/records would be exported, and in addition, there would be an export option added to the saved searches. That seems like a great solution.

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Judy Unrein
KC-ASTD Director of Communications

Hello Wild Apricot Team,

Currently, when exporting members or contacts, you can restrict via a query which records you want to export. However, in every case you will export all the fields. It would be extremely useful to be able to select the fields that are to be exported and even the order in which they are supposed to appear in the Excel table. I do regular exports to report on membership but have to spend a lot of time deleting and shifting columns in Excel.

However, this is not the greatest issue. I am currently testing Apricot for another organisation. Their database contains members that work from several different clinic locations. This information is forwarded onto health funds who require that per clinic location a separate record is listed for the same practitioner. Wild Apricot does not supply subfiles; the entire member record is displayed on one level. Therefore, to list several clinic locations for one member you have to set them up serially in W.A.,

for example:

Practitioner, Clinic Name 1, Clinic Details 1; Clinic Name 2, Clinic Details 2; etc. 

In order to fulfill the reporting requirements I had the idea to do several exports with exactly the same format, one for each clinic,

for example:

Export 1: Practitioner, Clinic Name 1, Clinic Details 1;

Export 2: Practitioner, Clinic Name 2, Clinic Details 2;

up to 5 clinics.

If it were possible to select the fields that are exported it would be a simple matter to finish by copying the 5 exports into one Excel sheet. At the moment, with copying and deleting columns, there is great scope for error and it's extremely time-consuming and tedious.

 Vera Externest

Vera,

Thank you for the details.  

 I will merge your post with an existing thread about selecting export fields.

For the time being you might want to consider creating an Excel template / macro which can take the WA export file and generate the report in the format you need. If you can find an Excel guru, that should be pretty simple thing to do. 

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

I agree with exporting saved searches, particularly if the order of fields selected in a saved search is maintained during the export.

 

As an aside, I would like to commend you and the team for your prompt responses and your readiness to listen to your clients' needs. Keep up the great work! (I didn't think a separate thread was appropriate for this but if you like I can start one so that other people can add their praises :-).

Vera

Vera Externest:

Currently, when exporting members or contacts, you can restrict via a query which records you want to export. However, in every case you will export all the fields. It would be extremely useful to be able to select the fields that are to be exported and even the order in which they are supposed to appear in the Excel table. I do regular exports to report on membership but have to spend a lot of time deleting and shifting columns in Excel.

 

Yes, please consider this another vote for this particular issue. I'm trialling the website for a professional organisation I'm in. For our monthly newsletter, we need a list of all member's email addresses in CSV format, but that's it -- just email address. As mentioned the current export function will export ALL fields, and then the rest have to be deleted in Excel.

 

(Since I need only one field it'd be less of a pain for me to delete them than for others who have to pick and choose, or re-order fields, but it would be a great feature to have nonetheless.)

 

Thanks,

-- Ali Lemer

 Society of Editors (Victoria)

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Committee Member
The Society of Editors (Victoria)
Melbourne, Australia

Chief_Apricot:

I think a good way to implement this would be to add "export" option to saved searches - than each saved search can potentially export specific desired fields and records.

Perfect. It's frustrating to spend the time to set up a report exactly as you want it only to export the it and get all of those extra fields. The ability to export a report exactly as you want it would be a huge time-saver. The only limitation that I can see is that the custom report layouts only allow 5 columns. This would definitely need to be increased.

 

Jennifer Walker

OrgRM

I would love this option as well!  I export our database a lot, and only need contact information most of the times, or a select group of the organization.  Being able to pick and choose fields (like the event reports) would make things go much faster 

we're currently looking at how to export a list of events and look at their revenue.

 

basically, it's strange that I can tag events for easy searching / filtering, but I can't export those lists with their financial data to look at which events are profitable (like a series of seminars for example).

 

seems like all the data is in the database, we just don't have the export to excel button! 

adrian@vm - could you please elaborate a little your needs? What financial data fields are you interested in? 

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Evgeny
Product Design Team

This get my vote as well - the ability to make custom layout in a search but then not be export the result of the search makes no sense.

We need to be able to export sub-sets of the database for specific purposes and individuals. At this time I first have to setup a search in Wild Apricot, then run this, then export and then tidy up in Excel. It would be so much more efficient to do this in one step and then export the results.

We would like to be able to just generate pre-set reports for different uses/users directly from the database and export them without need for further editing - we could then just run the search and email the results to those needing them.

We would definitely support having the ability to select the fields to export by what ever means works most effectively.  This needs to be available for membership fields as well as events.  It would substainly ease the work load of the adminstrators modifying the spreadsheets after each export.  However this is done, the ability to save the fields to be exported similar to saved searches would be required to make it usuable.

I need this capability ASAP. The ideal solution would enable me to define and name templates that identify which fields will be exported, and for me to be able to choose which template will be used when I click on "export". But I would welcome any of the approaches requested in this thread. For me, this is not just a time-saving feature (although time savings is a big motivator). One additional benefit (beyond time savings) is security -- avoiding sending sensitive info to other people, which can happen now if I don't delete all of the sensitive data in each export. A second additional benefit is that it will enable my whole organization to make better use of our Wild Apricot website because we can use Wild Apricot to better coordinate our many activities. Right now, Wild Apricot provides none of the social networking and coordination capabilities that many of our organization's members use every day at LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, wikis and other group workspaces, so we have multiple websites and accounts set up to do these things, and that means that I am constantly exporting and updating stuff at Wild Apricot. If WA doesn't catch up with the 21st century soon, it will become the least useful (and least used) part of our online services to members. Giving us custom exporting would be a good first step for WA in making my life easier and bridging the gap they have created by staying so far behind.

Thanks for the input, Peter. Still I cannot promise we will implement this soon but this quite high in our list. 

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Evgeny
Product Design Team