Export Troubles: Exporting only the most recent proposal

Erin Mcdermott:
Hi all, I'm trying to create a constituent export that includes proposals as a field of export. However, due to the constraint of space on a legal size paper, I only want to export one proposal (i.e. the most recent proposal). I've been having trouble trying to figure out how to do this. There is no criteria under the proposal export that allows for the functionality. I've tried marking previous proposals as inactive and making the query have a criteria with active proposals, but all this to no avail. It seems as if exporting only one proposal will force the exported proposal to be the oldest one on file (rather than the most recent). I want to create a seamless report/working excel for my company before I head back to school. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Since there is no such thing as a Proposal export (argh!), using a constituent export will still export all proposals with no chance of filtering them (other than by Purpose).  As you found out, using a query won't work either because you still need to use a Constituent export.  The query will only filter constituents that have active proposals, but doesn't help when you get to the export.  If the constituent has one active proposal, the export will still pull all proposals regardless of the query. 

Unfortunately I only have two horrific options for ya:  cleaning up the spreadsheet manually each time it is exported (eek!) or creating a custom report with Crystal Reports. 

I've had plenty of issues with reporting on Proposals, all due to the absence of a Proposal Export.

Erin Mcdermott:
Ah, that's what I feared... but thanks for the speedy reply! If it wasn't for you, I'd still be pulling my hair out trying to force a way for it to happen. Haha, RE should definitely add a Proposal Export to their list of exports; I feel like it's fairly basic/useful tool for a lot of people using RE. I'm trying to write a macro for my company so consistency is key. I guess it's time to move on to Crystal Reports. Thanks again!

This is why I recommend people think long and hard to decide what to use in their purpose drop down table. It is the only factor you can use to filter in exports. I use a comination of FY and Unrestricted/Restricted so I can pull all Unrestricted proposals in FY14 into my export by filtering on the purpose of UNR FY14.

It is annoying since we often also use these in the "proposal name" field but BB created a wackadoo (official name) structure for what fields were required and how export works and what field goes into reports. But it is what it is.