The Groups Screen

Group Basics Group Names List Group Names list Query, Filter and Sort state Currently highlighted Group's Name Group Details Currently highlighted Group's Description Formulaic Group's filter component Formulaic Group's query component Open button Edit button Add New Create How dialog Delete button Add To button Delete From button Group Power Tools

Group Basics First off, understand that deleting a Group does not delete anyone's record from the database. It only deletes a defined grouping of records. If you have been studying these help files then you know that there exists many ways to create a set of records, such as, Advanced Find, Instant Access Filtering, other Filtering Methods, and/or combinations of these methods. The Groups screen allows you to save the filters and queries that went into creating your unique set of records and give that group an easily remembered or descriptive name. Groups of this type are called 'Formulaic Groups' because they are created with a type of formula, like Records where city equals 'Smithville' and StreetName equals 'Elm' Formulaic Groups are automatically updated to include records that currently match the formula's criteria. In other words, using the example above, if a new person were added to the database who lived on Elm Street in Smithville then they would be included the next time that group was loaded. MrDistrict© also allows you to create a second, completely different, type of group called an 'Arbitrary Group'. An Arbitrary Group is a group that is not related by a formula, such as, 'My Bowling Partners' or 'Members of the Ladies Auxiliary'. It is formed of a completely 'arbitrary' set of records. Arbitrary Groups work almost the same as Formulaic Groups except there is a mechanism for adding and deleting members to and from the group. After highlighting a Group from the list, either pressing ENTER on your keyboard or clicking the 'Open' button loads that group.   Top: The Groups Screen   Group Names List This is the list of Groups that pertain to the current MrDistrict District Data file. They can be scrolled through using the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard. As each one is highlighted, information about that Group is displayed on screen. Once a Group Name is highlighted pressing Enter on your keyboard will open that Group. Highlighting an Arbitrary Group causes a button to appear marked 'Add To'. This is the mechanism for adding a person to an Arbitrary Group. Loading an Arbitrary Group causes the button to change to 'Delete From'. This is the mechanism for removing a person from an Arbitrary Group.   Top: The Groups Screen   Group Names list Query, Filter and Sort state As your list of Groups grows, it will be convenient to query, filter and sort the list in order to quickly locate a particular group. This section, along with the section just below the Groups List, does just that. Clicking on the word 'Filter' toggles the filter from 'All Groups' to 'Formulaic' to 'Arbitrary' causing the Groups List box to display only those types of Groups. Clicking the words 'Sorted by' causes the Groups List to toggle through several sort criteria, including name, creation date, and last modified date.   The section just below the Groups List (labeled 'Find in Group Names' in the picture) is where you can run a query to locate a particular group by either a part of it's name or description. To change from querying by Group Name to Group Description click on either the words 'Group Name' or 'Group Description'. Then just type in something to search for in the textbox and either click the 'Find' button or press the Enter key on your keyboard. Queries are run using the 'contains' matching option so searching for any part of a group's description or name will bring that Group up in the list. After running a successful Query of the Groups List the 'Find' button changes to read 'All'. Clicking the 'All' button removes the Query criteria and returns to displaying all Groups in the list (still filtered on the current Filter criteria if one was set).   Top: The Groups Screen   Group Details The Last Modified Date is the Date and Time that last the Group's Name or Description was modified. The creation date is the date when the group was first defined.   The Group Type field is set to either 'Arbitrary' or 'Formulaic' indicating the type of the Group that is highlighted in the Group Names list.   The Members field gives either the exact count or in the case of formulaic groups with both a filter and query criteria an approximation of the count of members in the Group currently highlighted in the Group Names list.   The Notes field gives the count of Group Notes attached to the Group currently highlighted in the Group Names list.   The icon that looks like a notepad with a 'G' on it opens the MrDistrict Word Processor where you can view, edit or add Group Notes attached to the Group currently highlighted in the Group Names list. MrDistrict can keep up to 36 separate Notes attached to a Group. Those Group Notes can be used to keep track of actions performed on that group such as mailings, information that explains why the Group was created or any other information that relates specifically to that Group.     Top: The Groups Screen   Currently highlighted Group's Name This field allows you to create/edit a Group's name as it will apear in the Groups List.   Top: The Groups Screen   Currently highlighted Group's Description This field allows you to create/edit a detailed description of a Group. When creating Formulaic Group a description (or partial description) is automatically suggested.   Top: The Groups Screen   Currently highlighted Group's Filtered on and Query parameters The Filtered on and Query sections contain the actual SQL code and actual filter criteria that MrDistrict will use to instantiate the currently highlighted Formulaic Group, if you choose to load it. Formulaic Groups are defined by the combination of these two values. You will notice that only Formulaic Groups have values in one/both of these boxes. If you are familiar with SQL then you may find this informative or at least interesting. If you are the intrepid type you may make note of these formulas for use in the Access file you may have created after doing a full export of your data. A Formulaic Group can be converted into an Arbitrary Group. An Arbitrary Group is defined by an actual list of Group members stored internally by MrDistrict. Arbitrary Groups can have blocks of records added and removed via the Group Power Tools to create complex Groups.   Top: The Groups Screen   Create How dialog     The Create How buttons are how you specify the type of group to create. If you would like to create a Formulaic Group then define a set of records by filtering and/or querying your district data using any of the methods available through the interface. Then open the Groups screen and click the 'New Group' button. The 'Create How' buttons will appear. To create a Formulaic Group based on the currently defined set of records click the third button. It will have a pop out that says, Create using the currently loaded records. Dialog boxes will appear in which you give the group a name and enter it's description. A description (or at least a partial description) in english of the current Query and filter criteria will be suggested for the description. That is how you create a Formulaic Group. To create an Arbitrary Group choose either the first or second 'Create How' buttons. The first button has a pop out that says, Create an empty group. Clicking this button also causes the Name and Description dialogs to appear. When you are done you will have a new empty Arbitrary Group. Highlighting it's name in the Groups List will cause the 'Add To' button to appear. You can now return to 'Voter Details' by clicking the 'Groups' button to toggle it off. The 'Add To' button should remain visible. Navigate to a voter's record that you would like to add to the Group and click 'Add To'. This will add the current record to the Group. If you forget which Group you are working with just hold your mouse over the 'Add To' button and a pop out will appear which says something like, Click to add Smith, John J to the My Bowling Partners group (except, of course, it will be the actual Group and constituent's name). The second 'Create How' button works exactly the same as the first except it automatically adds the current record to your new group.   Top: The Groups Screen   Add To button The 'Add To' button appears when an Arbitrary type group is highlighted in the Group Names List. The 'Add To' button is the mechanism by which you add people to your Arbitrary Groups. Once the 'Add To' button appears, click the 'Groups' button to toggle off the Groups screen. The Add To' button should remain visible. Using any of the available methods, you can now navigate to a person's record that you would like to add to the group. Clicking the 'Add To' button will add that person to the group. Don't worry about adding a person to the group more than once, it can't happen. If you forget which Group you are working with just hold your mouse over the 'Add To' button and a pop out will appear which says something like, Click to add Smith, John J to the My Bowling Partners group (except, of course, it will be the actual group and constituent's name).   Top: The Groups Screen   Delete From button The 'Delete From' button appears when an Arbitrary type group is loaded. The 'Delete From' button is the mechanism by which people are removed from an Arbitrary Group. It works very similar to the 'Add To' button. While an Arbitrary Group is loaded navigate to a record that you would like to remove from the Group. Click the 'Delete From' button to remove that person from the currently loaded Arbitrary Group. As with the 'Add To' button a pop out will appear when you hold your mouse over the button that says who will be removed from which group if the button is clicked.   Top: The Groups Screen   The Groups screen Editing controls Open The 'Open' button opens the currently highlighted group. The currently highlighted group can also be opened by pressing ENTER on your keyboard. By the way, you use the same method to close a group and return to all records as you do to return to all records from an Advanced Find or filter, press the ESC key on your keyboard. If the group is of the Formulaic type and includes a Query and a filter then you will have to press ESC twice to return to all records. Edit The Edit button allows you to change the Name and description of a Group. A Group's type cannot be changed, but a Formulaic Group can be used as the basis of a new Arbitrary Group. This is done with the Group Power Tool, 'Convert to a new Arb Group' After you are done editing click either 'Update' to save your changes or "Cancel' to discard them. Cancel Cancels the current operation, returning the record to its original values Add New To create a new group click the Add New button. Clicking the Add New button causes the Create How dialog to appear. Delete Clicking the 'Delete Group' button deletes the Group that is currently highlighted. This does not delete any records from your database. It only deletes the definition of the Group. Add to & Delete from The 'Add To' button appears when an Arbitrary type group is highlighted in the Group Names List. The 'Add To' button is the mechanism by which you add people to your Arbitrary Groups. Once the 'Add To' button appears, click the 'Groups' button to toggle off the Groups screen. The Add To' button should remain visible. Using any of the available methods, you can now navigate to a person's record that you would like to add to the group. Clicking the 'Add To' button will add that person to the group. Don't worry about adding a person to the group more than once, it can't happen. If you forget which Group you are working with just hold your mouse over the 'Add To' button and a pop out will appear which says something like, Click to add Smith, John J to the My Bowling Partners group (except, of course, it will be the actual group and constituent's name).   The 'Delete From' button appears when an Arbitrary type group is loaded. The 'Delete From' button is the mechanism by which people are removed from an Arbitrary Group. It works very similar to the 'Add To' button. While an Arbitrary Group is loaded navigate to a record that you would like to remove from the Group. Click the 'Delete From' button to remove that person from the currently loaded Arbitrary Group. As with the 'Add To' button a pop out will appear when you hold your mouse over the button that says who will be removed from which group if the button is clicked.   Top: The Groups Screen   Group Power Tools Add These Records To Arb Group When available clicking this button will add the current records to the arbitrary Group currently highlighted in the Group Names list.   The reason for doing this is to quickly build up an arbitrary Group without having to add all of the records one at a time. For instance if you are building an arbitrary Group to be used as the basis of a mailing list, you may want to include everyone who has been registered in the last year or Voters who voted in your election or some other group of people who can be filtered/queried by formula. Using this tool you can add those records to an arbitrary Group and then add some other set of voters which can be brought up with a different query/filter. This allows you to quickly build up a complex group based on various formulaic criteria.   Convert to a New Arb Group When available clicking this button will create a new arbitrary group containing the list of records which currently satisfy the criteria of the formulaic group currently highlighted in the Group Names list.   The reason for doing this might be to be able to delete or add those voters to a different arbitrary group. For instance, if you have been keeping track of voters who do not wish to be contacted by adding them to the Instant Group; 'Don't Call', then you can filter on those records, create a formulaic group and then convert the group to an arbitrary group. It is then a simple matter to use the 'Delete From Current Group' Power Tool to remove those records from your mailing list or some other list used when contacting your constituency.   Delete from current Group When available clicking this button will remove the current records (if they are included) from an Arbitrary Group. Remember an Arbitrary Group is not defined by an equation but is rather an arbitrary list.   The reason you may want to do this is to pare down a large arbitrary group by removing a set of records brought up by filtering/querying.   Clone this Group Clicking this button will create a copy of the currently highlighted group.   The reason you may want to do this might be to maintain an arbitrary Group of your known supporters but create an arbitrary Group that has the list refined in some way, such as, with all Entities removed or voters who have asked to not be contacted removed.     Top: The Groups Screen