Defining a Selection

Learn how to define selection.

To define a selection:

  1. Click the Selection icon in the icon bar or select Info Selection.

    The Selection level is displayed.

  2. The following options are available under Base and Result:
    • Select the Entire Database and Replace options to use the entire database as the basis for your selection. Any existing records in the selection are removed, and the selection is created anew.
    • Select the Entire Database and Extend options to use the entire database as the basis for your selection. The existing selection is extended to include those records that meet your conditions.
    • If your selection already contains companies/persons, you can also select the Selection and Replace options. The companies/persons that no longer meet your conditions are removed from the selection.

      For further information on these options, see Combining Selections.

  3. Determine which records should be included in the selection:
    • Companies only: The selection only contains company records.
    • Persons only: The selection only includes records in the Person (PE) info area that are linked to at least one record in the Contact Person (CP) info area.
    • Include private persons: The selection includes person records in the Person (PE) and Person in Company (KP) info areas.

      Enable both Include private persons and Persons only to include all records in the Person (PE) info area that meet the conditions, including those not linked to a record in the Contact Person (CP) info area.

      If neither Persons only nor Include private persons are enabled, only those records in the Person in Company info area are included in the selection.

  4. Click on an info areain the Condition column and select a field.
  5. Define the condition that needs to be met by records in the selection, see Defining Conditions.

    Example: All companies in the hardware, service and software sectors with revenue greater than a variable amount.

    Note: Variable conditions can be changed when generating the selection, see Defining Variable Conditions.
    Note: You can save the conditions, although this is not strictly necessary within the scope of selections.
  6. Click in the Active column of an info area to activate the condition.
  7. You can define conditions for any number of info areas (including info areas dependent on companies and persons), see Conditions Applied to Multiple/Dependent Info Areas.
  8. You can determine how records in the selection are sorted, see Sort Options.
  9. You can count the number of records and display an overview of the conditions, see Statistics and Overview.
  10. You can define complex conditions in the Extended Cond. column, see Extended Conditions.
  11. Generate the selection and save it, see Generating a Selection.

Alternatively, click on (Save) to save the selection. Use (Load) to reload the selection and continue editing at a later date.

Conditions Applied to Multiple/Dependent Info Areas

You have the following options if you have defined conditions for several info areas:

  • All: All dependent records must meet the condition. If the cell is not activated, at least one record must meet the conditions.

Example: The condition "Type = Telephone" must be met by all activities stored for a company/person; no other types of activities may be present.

  • Optional: Enable this cell for several rows to determine that the conditions in those info areas are combined with using a logical OR.

If you only enable the cell for a single info area, this only has an effect in conjunction with the Dependent column (see below).

  • Dependent: Click in this cell to choose between the following options for company-dependent and person-dependent info areas:

Example: Activity

Company: The selection contains:
  • All persons where at least one company-related activity exists (regardless of whether person-related activities exist or not)
  • and all companies without any persons for which a company-related activity exists.
Person: The selection contains:
  • All persons for whom at least one person-related activity exists (regardless of whether activities exist for the person's company).
  • If you enable Optional as well, companies without persons are also included in the selection.
Person OR Company: The selection contains:
  • All persons for whom at least one activity exists
  • and all persons where at least one activity exists for the company
  • and all companies without any persons for which a company-related activity exists.
Both: The selection contains:
  • All persons where at least one activity exists for their company
  • and all persons where an activity exists for at least one colleague (a person in the same company)
  • and all companies without persons with a company-related activity.

Sort Options

To sort the companies or persons in your selection:

  1. Click in the Sort Fields cell for the Company or Person info area.

    The Field Selection dialog box is displayed.

  2. Select one or more fields used to sort the records.
  3. Click OK.

    The Length column indicates the number of characters used to sort the records. The maximum available length is 50 sort characters. If you select several sort criteria, these 50 characters are distributed amongst all fields.

  4. Click in the Length cell to edit the number of sort characters.
    Note: If you sort catalog values, they are sorted by catalog code and not by content.
    Select Sort from the context menu to sort the records in the selection without updating the selection itself.

Statistics and Overview

  • Use the following options under Result to count the number of records when clicking on (Execute) instead of generating the selection:
    • Count only: The number of records in the selection is counted. This selection cannot be saved.
    • Count Stat.: All the records that satisfy the defined conditions are counted and displayed in the Counted column. If you have not defined any conditions for an info area, all records in the info area are counted.
  • Total: Select the Total option from the context menu to display the number of records that meet the defined conditions in the Total column. If no conditions have been defined, then all records in the database are counted.
  • Overview: Select Overview from the context menu to display an overview of all conditions defined for all info areas.

Select Options > Print from the menu to print the overview.

Special Case - Selecting Companies/Persons using Property Criteria (BTB only)

You can select persons and companies whilst defining criteria for properties these persons or companies are involved with. The Property info area is included in the Selection level for this purpose, although the Property info area itself is neither company nor person-dependent.

Example: Property: Country = Austria and Project Status = In progress.

The result of the selection is all companies/persons involved in properties in Austria that are currently under way.

Note: If you define conditions for properties as well as participants (e.g. Property: Country = Austria and Part. Parties: Participation = Architect), all companies/persons entered as architects (irrespective of the country the property is in) and also involved in properties in Austria (irrespective of the type of participation) are included in the results.

Excluding Records from Selections

Use the Exclude from selections field to exclude companies and persons from selections, i.e. those records where this field is enabled are not included in selections even if they meet the selection criteria.

Note: Companies are only excluded from selections if you enable a condition applied to the Company info area in the selection. The same applies to records in the Person in Company info area - the field only has an effect if the Person in Company info area is activated in the selection. Excluding a company from selections does not exclude the persons in that company from selections.