Oh the frustration……you know the scenario. You’ve got your Raiser’s Edge Query just right, you’ve built a beautiful Export with all the fields you want, filtered just so…you’re feeling so proud of your Raiser’s Edge geekiness… only to have your bubble burst in Excel or Crystal 
Reports. You realize that you can’t sort alphabetically or group your information by Constituent! You try to sort by Last Name, but that doesn’t take care of the Organizations. You can’t sort by Organization name because that field is <blank> for Individuals. Of course, you can manipulate your columns in Excel, but that does you no good in Crystal Reports. What about grouping? How about those 3 generations of John Jones in your database?
What is a Raiser’s Edge user to do?!?!?
Fortunately, the smart, code-writing folks at Blackbaud recognized the fact that Individual and Organization Constituent records do not naturally share a common field, so they created one! Well, two actually.
Sort Name and Sort Key are fields designed specifically to allow for sorting of Individuals and Organizations on the same field. Smart folks, huh?
The 2 fields are very similar, with some very important differences.
|
FIELD NAME |
SORT KEY |
SORT NAME |
|
FIELDS |
LAST NAME,FIRST NAME,MIDDLE NAME,IMPORT ID ORGANIZATION NAME,IMPORT ID |
LAST NAME,FIRST NAME,MIDDLE NAME ORGANIZATION NAME |
|
CASE |
TITLE CASE |
ALL UPPER CASE |
I tend to favor the Sort Key because it includes the Import ID. Every record in the system has an Import ID, and every one is unique. This is important, especially for grouping records like Gifts, Relationships, or Actions by Constituent. Since the Import ID is unique, it follows that the Sort Key is also unique. As we all know, names alone are not always unique.
Sometimes, people push back at me when I suggest exporting these fields. Let’s face it, they’re not very sexy. Everybody wants the Primary Addressee to display because it’s usually prettier. But wait, just because you use a Sort Field to Sort on doesn’t mean you have to display it. Can you say hide in Excel, or suppress in Crystal Reports? Trust me when I tell you, the first field I grab in a new Constituent export is the always the Sort Key.
You never know when you’re going to need to sort things out 🙂
Keeping you on the Leading Edge,
