Support

Hi,

Is is possible to eliminate some fields from the advanced search? It especially doesn't make sense to have non-public fields display. For example, on our Find a Consultant page, it doesn't make sense to search on references (which only show on the application). http://consultingalliance.roundtablelive.org/Default.aspx?pageId=119035&tab=2

Can you use a saved search on a public page yet? Our Find a Speaker page is very awkward. http://consultingalliance.roundtablelive.org/Default.aspx?pageId=107156

It looks like you are planning this for the end of June, but I'm just checking because we are about to go live.

Thanks!
Cindy

I understand you are talking about member directory, right?

About the list of fields in search - this is actually an intended consequence of a recent update. See forum post We are now collecting feedback and analyzing ways to address the concerns and requests we have received so far - feel free to comment there.

Using a saved search is indeed being implemented (just entered testing) and will be released in next update, around end of June.

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

I'm having problems on the same topic as the original poster at the top of this thread.

In other words, 'advanced search' for member directory has lots of fields which are spurious (becuase the results are never public, e,g, first name, surname etc etc). A consequence of having all fields included is it makes "advanced search" more confusing and complicated to use for our members.

I hoped from your response above that "saved searches" would be the answer and have just started experimenting with them. However 1/ my saved searchs don't seem to be accessible to other members 2/ saved searches are too defintive - I want to clarify 3 categories for example by which a member might find it helpful to search if they're looking for a volunteer. However I don't want to specify which exact option from those categories they should be searching, (which saved searches seems to do for them).

Hope this makes sense - look forward to hearing your thoughts.

I think pseudostave is saying the same thing I noted in another thread,

when you use advanced search in member directory, there are a lot of fields under "add criteria" that are not included in the member directory.  If you try searching on one of them, the results are "0" - and even if they weren't, you couldn't see the data in that field because it doesn't show in the directory.

It seems like the directory "add criteria" should be limited to the fields that actually have been selected for inclusion in the directory.  It adds a layer of confusion as it currently is.

I've figured out a little bit more on this topic to make it work better for my needs. Just in case anyone is interested...

My solution centred around having multiple 'member directory pages' and customising each of them. If you log-in as admin go to web pages, add new page, choose functional pages, and then 'member directory'. The advantages of this are three-fold: 1/ you can choose which membership levels appear on this new membership directory and limit it to those which are relevant for this page  2/ you can customise the columns on the keyword search page (so for example- I have links for my members to three different "member directory" pages now, each entiled a different search (eg. volunteer seatch, organisation search) each with different columns which are relevant to helping differentiate between that membership level. 3/ this allows you to incorporate a saved search with you might have made as an admin member

Assuming some people haven't yet cottoned onto this solution I hope this is helpful for making 'searches' work better for you.

I still think however 'advanced search', a powerful tool, which should be very useful to members is made overly complicated by the inclusion of items in the list which are not searchable by members or the public. Simply put if a database field is listed as "no access" in the default selections then it shouldn't as a rule be included in the advance search.

We are hearing you and appreciate your feedback. We are analyzing this and will definitely come up with some ideas to address your needs.

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot