Search

As important as it is to understand and become familiar with the contact record interface, we also need to be able to quickly find records in the system. We started our exploration of CiviCRM by looking at the quick search field in the navigation bar. Search | Find Contacts extends this to allow filtering by contact type, group, or tag. Beyond this basic search, CiviCRM provides four power tools for searching and additional diverse functionality through the reporting system.

Quick search

Quick search is found in the navigation menu, and is best used when you are looking for a specific contact. The text entered into this field will search e-mail addresses (by default) and the contact name (sorted by name for individuals, household name for households, and organization name for organizations). The search will return results for partial matches as you begin typing. You have the option of configuring the tool to use full wildcard searches or only ending wildcards (Administer | Configure...