Deleting entire attribute line?

Ryan Hyde:

Go into your Admin > Globally Change Records > Constituent. In the Constituent Attributes section, find the entry that just says "Attributes." Select "Delete" and select the appropriate attribute from the dropdown menu. Obviously you'll want to pipe in a query so that you're deleting the attribute from your selected constiuents and not every constituent in existance (assuming you're only doing this to a subset, which seems to be the case). 

Ryan Hyde:

First off, my method works - I've verified it on a dummy account here. The mistake most people make is that they're selecting the specific attribute from under Constituent Attributes. What you want to do is select the entry simply called "Attributes," which doesn't have a little + next to it. 


And it's 100% possible to delete only attributes with a specific description. Once you grave the aforementioned "Attributes" entry, select delete, you'll then select the appropriate attribute under "Category" and then select the specific description under "Description." 


I did this just now with our dummy record. I added two idential attributes (Interest Code) and gave each a different description (cats and dogs). I then followed my procedure and deleted only the attribute with the description "dogs." I looked at the record and behold, there was only one Interest Code attribute, and it had the description of "cats."


So again, the full path would be this:

Admin > Globally Change Records > Constituent > Constituent > Constituent Attributes > Attributes


Operater = Delete

Category = specific attribute

Description = the specific description you want deleted

Jennifer Claudy:

Okay...use the same Global Change, but instead of choosing Attributes > Delete, choose Planned Giving Prospect > Description.  Then select Add > enter "DELETE" > LEAVE BLANK the checkbox to [overwrite existing data] > [Change Now].


Reset your Query for records with Planned Giving Prospect: DELETE and try the Global Change > Attributes > Delete > Planned Giving Prospect: DELETE process again.  (I still recommend you add Constituent ID one of  to your Query Criteria just in case.)


RE can't delete a null Description (I think you can do it, or you can do it via Import, but this is probably faster), so if you put something else in there first, you should be good to go.


If you are not Hosted, I would also suggest making a complete backup of your database before doing anything further.  You can never be too careful.

I was actually just pondering this - switching the blanks back to a dummy DELETE and then working my newly discovered magic


The only reason I'm even messing with these is because we took a backup this afternoon for another update, so I feel comfortable having that back up.  I'm hopeful I won't need to resort to that though....


Thanks again everyone!