Advanced contact search

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View of the “advanced search” page

Advanced search is your primary segmentation tool. It allows you to filter your database using dozens of criteria simultaneously, view results in real time, and then trigger group actions (campaigns, categorization, visit routes, export). It replaces the old simple search page with a much more powerful interface.

Access it from the menu Contacts → Advanced Search, or directly via the URL /app/contact/search.

A glance at the screen

The interface is divided into three areas:

• At the top: a full-text search field (name, first name, email, phone number, address).
• On the left: the advanced filters panel (stays visible during scrolling) with its nine sections.
• On the right: the results table with pagination, sorting, selection, and the group action bar.

At the top of the screen, two buttons manage the saved searches: Save (to create a reusable search) and My Searches (to load a saved search).

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Automatic update

As soon as you modify a filter or type in the text field, the results are automatically refreshed after a short delay. There’s no need to click a “Search” button.

Full-text search

The field at the very top accepts multiple words separated by spaces. Each word is considered a token that must be found in at least one of the main fields of the contact: name, first name, email, phone number, address.

Examples:

Search	Behavior
cohen	All contacts with a field containing “cohen”
cohen paris	Contacts whose fields contain both “cohen” and “paris”
+33 6 12	Contacts whose phone number starts with this pattern

The search is case-insensitive and ignores accents: typing elie will also find “Élie” or “Éliyahou”.

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Text search + filters: the winning combination

The text field works in conjunction with advanced filters. For example, you can filter for “all archived contacts from Marseille” using the panel, then enter mizrahi to keep only those whose names contain this pattern.

The nine filter sections

The filter panel groups the criteria into nine sections to remain readable. Click on a section to expand its filters.

Section	What’s Included
Identity	Gender, first part of name, included first names, date of birth, age
Categories & relationships	Applied categories, family ties, number of parents/children
Contact details	Email/phone information included, presence of an email, phone number, or address, date of birth, number of emails/phones/addresses
Geography	Country, city, postal code, address, phone area code
Contact status	New, deceased, archived
Documents & commitments	Presence of documents, custom fields, active chlihouts (rituals)
System activity	Creation date, last modification date
Custom fields	All your custom-created fields (Text, Number, Boolean, Date)
Financial activity	Total paid, number of payments, period, payment methods used, active subscription, ongoing commitment

The details of each filter, its modes (Include, Exclude, Equal), and its expected formats are described on the dedicated page: Filter Catalog.

Understanding the Include/Exclude/Equal modes

Some multi-value filters (Categories, Family Links, First Name, Email contains…) provide a mode selector:

• Include (default) — the contact matches if it has at least one of the selected values.
• Exclude — the contact matches if it has none of the selected values.
• Equal — the contact matches if it has exactly all of the selected values (neither more nor less).

Example: if you filter the category on #FIDELE, #NEWSLETTER:

• Include → contacts who have at least one of these two categories.
• Exclude → contacts who do not have either #FIDELE or #NEWSLETTER.
• Equal → contacts who have exactly these two categories (and no others).

Results

The table on the right displays the filtered contacts, with each row showing:

• The courtesy icon, the full name (clickable to open the profile).
• The primary email, the primary phone number, the primary address.
• Up to 3 categories are displayed as tags; beyond that, a “+N” counter appears with the full list on hover.

If you have added a financial filter (total paid, analysis period, …), an additional column Total donation appears showing the cumulative amount and the corresponding number of payments.

Sort and paginate

The table supports sorting by name (column Contact). The default pagination is 50 contacts per page, with options of 25 / 100 / 200. The total number of results is displayed at the bottom of the table.

Group selection and actions

Check the contacts line by line, or use the header box to select the entire page. Once at least one contact is checked, the group action bar at the top of the table becomes active.

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Select all filtered results

If your filters return more contacts than one page, a banner appears with the button Select all N filtered results. This button loads the entire selection on the server — actions will then affect the whole set, not just the visible page.

Available actions

Once the selection is defined, three actions are offered:

Action	Effect
Create a messaging campaign	Opens a pre-filled campaign editor with a list of recipients (SMS, email, push…). For contacts with registered parents, those parents are added as recipients; otherwise, the contact themselves is used.
Add categories	Applies one or more categories (tags) to all selected contacts in a single operation.
Add to a route	Opens the modal for assigning a route (GPS tour). Ideal for preparing visits to multiple families in an area.

Export results

The Export menu offers two uses:

• Export Excel: select columns in groups — identity, contact details, address, system, financial data when a corresponding filter is active, and custom fields;
• Export postal: obtain a list ready for mass mailing, grouped by family and address to reduce duplicate deliveries. See Preparing a postal export.

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The whole page is not the entire result

Check the selection banner to see if the action applies to the current page or to all filtered results. The file retains the active selection.

Save and reload a search

When you have created a useful filter combination (for example “Paris Donors 2025”), click Save in the top right corner. Give it a name and choose the visibility:

• Personal — visible only to you.
• Shared — visible to all users in your organization. Useful for preparing segments to be reused by the entire team.

Saved searches can be reloaded with just one click from the My Searches button. Visit the dedicated page: Saved Searches.

Modified search indicator

After loading a saved search, its name is displayed on the left side of the top bar. If you modify a filter, a modified badge appears and an Update button is provided (reserved for the owner). This prevents accidentally overwriting a search shared by a colleague.

Performance

Advanced search relies on an optimized MongoDB aggregation pipeline with a French collation (case-insensitive and accent-insensitive). For large databases:

• Sorting and pagination are delegated to the server.
• The “Select all filtered results” action loads only the necessary identifiers (not all data).
• Export uses the same data as what is displayed (no redundant second API call).

With bases exceeding several tens of thousands of contacts, expect a delay of one to two seconds after each filter change.

Parents' addresses and financial criteria

You can search for children using their parents' addresses and export the corresponding results. The results are grouped by family identity to avoid duplicates.

Financial filters can specify the currency and the total amount of Tax receipts. Check the selected currency before comparing amounts; the sum of receipts and the sum of payments address different questions.

Going further

• Detailed catalogue of filters — the comprehensive list of available criteria and their format.
• Saved searches — management, sharing, organization.
• Tricky points to be aware of — subtle behaviors related to searching, duplicates, case sensitivity, etc.