Search for Contacts

When searching for contacts, there are three dropdowns available:

1. Contacts to be searched – choose which contacts to search within
2. Search Options – choose the field(s) to search by
3. Search Criteria – choose how the search value should be matched

Home tab:

Contacts tab:

Contacts to be searched

The first dropdown allows you to choose which contacts are included in your search.

By default, this is set to All Contacts, which searches across all contacts within your organisation.

You can also select My Contacts, which limits the search to contacts that are connected to you in one of the following ways:

• the contact is on one of your assigned lists
• your user is assigned on an attribute
• your user is linked to an attribute on the contact

For more information about linking users to attributes, click here.

Search Options

The Search Options dropdown allows you to choose which contact field you want to search by.

Default search options

The following options are available by default:

• Vega ID: Search for a contact by their Vega ID.
• Account Name: Search for a contact by their Account Name.
• First and Last Name: Search for a contact by both their First Name and Last Name.
• Last Name: Search for a contact by their Last Name.
• First Name: Search for a contact by their First Name.
• Email: Search for a contact by their Email Address.

Further search options available from the dropdown are:

Inactive Only - Show contacts marked as Inactive only Active & Inactive - Show contacts regardless of active status Ok to Contact Only - Show contacts marked as Ok to Contact only Not Ok to Contact Only - Show contacts marked as Not Ok to Contact only Last Name - Search by last name Phone - Search by mobile, home, main, or work phone number Salutation - Search by salutation/ Greet-as name Address 1: Search by the first line of the address Address 2: Search by the second line of the address Suburb: Search by suburb City: Search by city Organisation: Search by the Organisation Field Org ID: Search by Org ID Supp ID: Search by Supp ID Attribute: Search by an attribute name (open attributes only) Recurring Payment Reference: Search by a reference entered against a recurring payment Batch Code: Search by a specific batch code Transaction ID: Search by a payment transaction ID Payment Gateway Reference: Search by the gateway reference automatically added to payments processed through your payment gateway Payment Gateway Token: Search by the gateway token stored against tokenised credit card payments

To remove a search option, click on the 'X' next to the search option name:

To remove all selected search options and start again, click Clear.

Search Criteria

The Search Criteria dropdown controls how Vega matches the value you enter against the selected search option.

The default search criterion is Starts With.

The available criteria are:

• Starts With – finds contacts where the selected field begins with the characters entered
• Exact Match – finds contacts where the selected field exactly matches the value entered
• Anywhere In – finds contacts where the entered value appears anywhere within the selected field

Tips for searching effectively

• Use Exact Match when searching for unique values such as a Vega ID, email address, or transaction ID.
• Use Starts With when you know the beginning of a name or account name.
• Use Anywhere In when you only know part of the value you’re searching for.
• If you’re not finding the expected results, check whether All Contacts or My Contacts is selected.