CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

My client has asked for a few simple searches that look like I might have to write custom searches for, but before I do that I thought I'd ask the question on the forum, in case I'm missing some fundamental way to do this:

1. Need to list all contacts who have donated (contributed), who are NOT members (and/or who have never been members)
2. All contacts who are members who have NOT contributed ever
3. All contacts who are either current members OR who have contributed this year

The advanced search falls short as follows (unless I'm missing something):
1. I cannot "NOT" the member selection
2. I cannot "NOT" the contribution selection
3. This does "Current Member" AND "Contributor this year" - I need "Current Member" OR "Contributor this year"

Any easy way around this, without writing custom searches? My client has just started on the NOT/AND/OR path and I know that they'll be hitting me with more requirements here....

I googled this, but of course google for "civicrm NOT OR AND" produces billions of results 

You might want to try out the following
Smart Group A = All donors
Smart Group B = All members

Use the existing Custom Search (click on Custom Search under Search) "Include/Exclude Contacts in a Group/Tag"

and I think you can potentially achieve  1 + 2.

For 3 - just select both Smart Groups in Adv Search.

Does that do it?

I thought of doing that, but the problem is I need greater granularity - contributors this year, last year, this quarter etc etc. Current members, expired members, certain types of members.... the list goes on. The list of smart groups would grow fairly large..... Doable though. It's really a toss up as to whether I create and manage the custom searches or create and manage the smart groups!
Cheers,
Marty.

I ended up building custom searches. Am happy to share the searches if anyone's interested:
1. Members who have never contributed
2. Contributors who are not, and have never been, members
3. Current and recently expired members ("recent" expiry date is selected by end user) who have contributed

Thanks for the replies guys.
Cheers,
Marty.

marty:

if u can wait for a few days, this would make a great test case for the new civicrm packaging mechanism for custom searches

check:

http://civicrm.org/blogs/michal/civicrm-extensions-framework-taking-33

lobo