Suppress Duplicate Rows removes all results?

Options
Hi folks,

I'm building a query and I'm getting an odd result when turning on "Suppress duplicate rows". The query looks at certain Constituent Codes, Consecutive Years of Giving, Last Appeal ID, and so on. I'm getting some duplicate results because of the Constituent Code criteria. Turning on Suppress Duplicate Rows, however, removes ALL of the results, not just the duplicate ones.


What's up with that?

Thanks,

Sam

Comments

  • Sam Fraser:

    Hi folks,

    I'm building a query and I'm getting an odd result when turning on "Suppress duplicate rows". The query looks at certain Constituent Codes, Consecutive Years of Giving, Last Appeal ID, and so on. I'm getting some duplicate results because of the Constituent Code criteria. Turning on Suppress Duplicate Rows, however, removes ALL of the results, not just the duplicate ones.


    What's up with that?

    Thanks,

    Sam

    Hi Sam, I've actually never had that happen. But as a general rule, I just assume that the query tool is solely for the purpose of gathering information, not for digesting said info. I don't even usually bother with outputs in query, but go straight to export and look at the data once it's been exported to excel. Hope that helps. Good luck! 

  • As Michelle has said, try using Export for the bulk of your output data. However, it is useful to have some output data on a query just so you know it's functioning properly. Try reducing yoru output fields to only those absolutely necessary to know you got the results you wanted: Constituent ID, and Last Appeal ID, for example - then open some of the records up randomly from the Results page to double-check that it is pulling correctly. If it is, go to Export for your actual data output.
  • Faith Murray:

    As Michelle has said, try using Export for the bulk of your output data. However, it is useful to have some output data on a query just so you know it's functioning properly. Try reducing yoru output fields to only those absolutely necessary to know you got the results you wanted: Constituent ID, and Last Appeal ID, for example - then open some of the records up randomly from the Results page to double-check that it is pulling correctly. If it is, go to Export for your actual data output.

    HI folks,

    I'll be using this query as the basis for a Mail merge, so I want to be sure the query outputs the right group of people. I managed to eliminate the duplicates by using multiple Constituent Code criteria, rather than a "One of" filter. Thanks for your help!

    Sam

  • Sam - 


    Hope you're not going to produce a mailing list from the query output -- because that's also prone to errors if done from a query.  Especially if you want to use 'seasonal addresses' you definitely want to produce the data for your merge out of EXPORT and not from query.


    As a general rule, it's best not to use any data from the query directly but rather run through export or mail.  Sometimes it seems fine but sometimes it's not -- and you can inadvertently output incorrect data if pulled out of query directly.

Categories