Major search limitations and inconsistency
Overview
I have been using CiviCRM for some 7 years nowm more as a implementer and casual small and simple pr creator.
Something we have run into since using CiviCRM is the inconsistency in using the search functions to create smart groups. We have found workarounds but these are mostly resource expensive.
Example use-case
Advanced Search (AS)
- intuitive interface
- Is not able to do advanced logic like '= NULL'
Search Builder (SB)
- great overall flexibility
- Is not able to use relative date filters
Current behavior
For creating some of the smart groups we need, we now usually create 3 smartgroups.
- smartgroup AS with participant info with relative date filter
- smartgroup SB with some value = (NOT) NULL
- An include/exclude search group to combine the two This is very resource intensive but the only workaround we know of today
Proposed behavior
enable the following search logic Advanced Search:
- IS NULL / IS NOT NULL for select and date fields
enable the following search logic for Search Builder:
- relative date filters for date fields
Comments
I will try to come up with some more comprehensive examples which I think will enhance both functionality and performance of CiviCRM.
Related issues, pr's and stackexchange topics:
Proposal to add is empty / is not empty to AS date field filters #1211 (closed)
Api4 Search Builder Vision by Eileen: #1106 (moved)