CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I am looking to exclude contacts in one smart group if the contact is tagged or it exists in another specific smart group and it is not working as I would expect.

We have Smart Group A set up to be comprised of everyone who has selected a custom selector field A data "A".
We also have a Tag B.

We would like to set up a Smart Group that is comprised of everyone who has Custom Field A who does not have Tag B.

The search criteria is set up as follows:

Contacts    Custom Field A = "A"
Contacts    Tags != B

I was thinking that both criteria would need to be satisfied in order to find the contact.  I am finding that if either criteria is satisfied the contact will display.

I also tried making a smart group based on Tag B and changing the second criteria to Contacts Groups != <new smart group based on tag B>

This had the same result.

Going over everything once again, there was a second tag checked, which I removed.  Once the second tag was removed the contact did move out of the smart group as expected, so it appears as if the criteria:

contact   tag != B

Will work to test ANY tag, not just tag B.

Is this by design?  Is there a way to do exclude a contact based on criteria like a tag?

I was also wondering how often smart groups get updated after a change is made, and how/where to change this frequency if required.  In our environment we will want to have changes occur within a second or two if possible.  It appears as if a change to a tag which effects inclusion in a smart group will only happen after a few minutes.  I would like to shorten this up.

Can I build groups with custom search? 

Thanks Pete!  I'll look into it.  I appreciate your tip.  I love this product!  Sometimes it is difficult to see the forrest for the trees.