CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I've come across a couple of issues in using CiviCRM when dealing with members, and I believe a few simple improvements would make the software a lot more flexible.

1. The use of standard search fields in CiviMember/Contribute find fields.
I work for an educational organisation that also publishes a magazine that is available to the general public. Each year we intake about 150 students, some of which are already subscribers to the magazine, some who are not. Each student automatically gets 4 year's subscription, an easy task for the new subscribers, but I need to add 4 years on top of current subscribers' subscription. The task of updating Their subscription would be made incredibly easier by allowing me to search for members in a group, or tagged in a certain way. I would then export those memberships, delete them on the CiviCRM system, amend the expiry dates (+4 years) and import the amended memberships.

2. Being able to customise exports from the CiviMember/Contribute modules.
A temporary workaround for the above process was to batch add an 'x' to the (unused) IM Screen Name field in all new students. I would then export all active members from the CiviMember module and sort by the IM Screen Name field. If I was able to choose to export tags or groups, I would be able to find these members without the above process.

I hope this all makes sense. And thanks again for a wonderful piece of software.

James.