/
People Filters (Finders)

People Filters (Finders)

About people filters

People filters - or finders - let you report on individuals in Campus Cafe. For example, you can search for all students from Rhode Island and generate a list of their names, addresses and majors.

There are six People Filters (Finders) : Prospects, Students, Parents, Faculty, Constituents and All People. When you use a finder, you’ll always see basic information like name. Additional information available depends on the population. For example, when using the Prospect filter you’ll see admission progress code, entering semester, and inquiry date. On an constituent search, you’ll see class year, constituency, and solicitor.

You can limit your results by field. For example, you may wish to limit your student results to students from Rhode Island who also are majoring in Journalism and have a GPA greater than 3.5 to find students who qualify for a scholarship.

The People Finder returns a defined number of results specified by the user. Campus Cafe recommends only retrieving the number of records needed for the current task. Increasing the search results to large number will affect system performance.                                

Go to finders

  1. At the top of the screen click Filters.

  2. Click the desired filter.

    image-20250201-190323.png

Define criteria

Use fields to narrow or limit your results. Each field corresponds to a specific data element like the person’s name, state, GPA, major, etc. You can use fields together to build and statements such as the student must be from Rhode Island and a journalism major.

  1. Go the the finder by clicking Filters at the top of the screen.

  2. When you use a filter, it displays information about people such as their ID number, name, birthday, academic program, etc. The information you want displayed might depend on what you’re doing. For example, when running a filter to find students for state reporting, you may need their town. However, when running a report to find students eligible for Dean’s List, town isn’t relevant. Campus Cafe lets you change the information displayed as a Report Format, also known as a table configuration. You can save multiple formats to align with your different business processes. If you previously saved a Report Format you can select it now. If not, don’t worry, you can change the information (columns) displayed later.

    image-20250202-155658.png
  3. Click >Add Fields.

  4. In the Search box you can enter a criteria. For example State.

  1. Select (check) each criteria (field) you want to use to limit your results.

  2. Search for additional fields (criteria) if you need them and select them. For example Class Level if you wanted to limit your results to students from Rhode Island and who are sophomores.

  3. Below where you selected your fields, click Filters.

  4. You’ll now see the fields you selected.

     

  5. For each criteria, first select the operator and to the right enter what you’re looking for. You can click the three horizontal lines to see your options.
    Common operators include:

    • Starts With means the results must start with the text you enter. For example, you could find all people with a last name that start with Barr.

    • Equal to means the results must match the text you enter exactly. For example, to find all people with the last name of Smith you’d select equal to and enter Smith.

    • Is One Of lets you select multiple options. For example, you could use Is One Of to find all students from Alaska or Alabama. Click the three horizontal lines, select the states and click Apply.

       

       

  6. For a person to appear in the results all the fields must be true for them.
    In the example below for a person to appear in the results their last name must start with Barr and they must be from AK or AL and they must be a level 2 class level. They can be from AK or AL because for that specific field (state) we chose Is One Of.

  7. Below your fields, set the # of Results and # Per Page. This controls the total number of results return and how many show on each page without having to click to the next page.
    In the example below we would see a maximum of 500 people returned, even if more met the criteria we set. 100 people would show per page.

  8. Click Submit.

Video tutorial

Use variable date criteria

You might want to run a filter on a regular basis and show only results that occurred in a recent time frame. For example, you might want to see all inquires that occurred within the last week. Rather than set these specific dates each time you run the filter, you can enter a variable that automatically adjusts depending on today’s date.

For this to work, the filters must be saved and then run from the All Users' Filters or Your Filters.

  1. In a date filter box enter any of the below

Text to enter in date field

What it will show

Text to enter in date field

What it will show

~Today

The date will always translate to today's date (the date the query is submitted)

~PrvDay

The date will always be yesterday's date

~PrvWeek

The date will always be a week ago from today

~PrvMnth

The date will always be a month ago from today

~PrvYear

The date will always be a year ago from today

  1. In Save Filter As enter a filter name.

  2. Click Submit.

  3. Next time the filter is run, the date with the variable will automatically fill in with the correct date.

Video example of variable date criteria

Save criteria 

Each time you run the finder, it returns the results that match the criteria as of that moment. For example, if you configure the finder to return all students from Alabama on Monday you may return 10 students. On Friday, you run the finder with the same criteria and return only 9 students. This is because during the week one individual’s address was changed and they now don’t live in Alabama.

If you often search for the students meeting a particular criteria, you can save your criteria. This way you don’t need to set the criteria every time you need to identify a certain population of students. For example, you may need to run a weekly report of students from Alabama for an outside reporting requirement. Once you set the criteria, which may be just state or state and additional criteria, you can save it.

Save a filter

  1. Configure your fields as desired and click Submit.

  2. In Save Filter As enter a name to identify the criteria. For example, Alabama Students.

  3. Optionally, to allow others to use this same criteria when they run the Student Finder, select (check) Available For All Users?

  4. Click Save Filter As.

Use a saved filter

Once you’ve saved a filter, you can use it later, even if you’ve logged out of Campus Cafe and returned the next day. If someone else has saved a filter and allowed others to use it, you can use their filter, too. This can help ensure that different people across your organization use the same criteria when answering a common question like how many students do we have from Alabama?

  1. Go to the Filter.

  2. At the top select a filter either from All Users or My Filters.

  3. Once a filter is selected, the finder shows the resulting students who match the criteria. You can adjust the criteria by clicking Filters.

Show results based on list of IDs

As an alternative to defining criteria, you can upload a list of Campus Cafe ID numbers. You might gather the IDs from an export of activity tracking items or any list of ID numbers gathered outside of Campus Cafe. The ID numbers may appear more than once in your spreadsheet, but they will be de-duplicated when fed into the People Finder. The ID number input list may then be further filtered using the filter fields on the finder. 

  1. Create a spreadsheet with ID numbers listed in the first column. Campus Cafe ignores data in other columns.

  2. Save the spreadsheet as a .csv file
    Important: The file name cannot contain any periods. The only period should be prior to file extension csv

  3. Go to the filter.

  4. Click Filters.

  5. Click Browse and select your file.

  6. Click Import.

  7. Click Filters.

  8. Adjust the Results to at least the number of IDs in your file.

  9. Click Submit.

Result limit

To ensure quality system performance, Campus Cafe by default limits results to 100 total people and 100 people per page. You can increase this limit by changing the numbers in # of Results and # Per Page.

Add/hide columns to results (report format)

When you return results, you may wish to see more information about each person. For example, you may return students from Connecticut and Rhode Island and you want to see their full addresses.

If you export results, only visible columns appear in the exported file.

  1. Click Column Visibility.

  2. Click a column name to show or hide the column. Tip, you can search for a specific column by typing its name next to the magazine glass.

  3. Rearrange columns by clicking and dragging the column to a new location.

  4. Sort by column by clicking the column header.

Some data elements on the finder results - namely student credits and GPA data - update overnight. The GPA processor may be triggered manually if the data must be refreshed on demand.

Save report format (table arrangement)

The results grid, including the visible columns (data fields) and the column order, may be saved. This way when you run a filter in the future, you can have the same set of columns appear. Columns contain information like ID number, name, major, GPA, etc.

  1. With the results loaded and the columns visible and arranged as desired, click the disk icon.

  2. In Name of Table Configuration enter a name for the column arrangement.
    Tip: To make this the default arrangement, save it as *MY DEFAULT

  3. Optionally select Make Available For All Users to make arrangement visible to others.

  4. Click Save.

To launch this column arrangement in the future before running your filter, select it from Report Format.

To launch this column arrangement in the future after running your filter, select it from the menu under Results.

Launch person from result

Clicking the Launch Person link (assuming this column is visible) will bring you to the person’s profile that shows information about the individual and allows navigation to additional information and functions related to that individual.

Export results

You can export the results to an Excel spreadsheet or PDF. Only rows and columns that are selected on the grid will be exported.

  1. Click the Excel or PDF button.

  2. Depending on your browser settings the file will either open, download or prompt you for guidance on whether to open or save the file.

Download results

The download option allows downloading the results with additional data elements not shown in the results grid.

  1. Click the Download icon.

  2. Select the data elements to download

  3. Click Apply.

  4. Click Download > For All.

  5. The file downloads as a .tab file.

Open a .tab file in Excel

  1. Open Excel.

  2. Go to File > Open.

  3. Click Browse.

  4. To the right of the File name box, select All Files (*.*) from the drop down

  5. Select your file.

  6. Under Original data type, select Delimited.

  7. Click Next.

  8. Under Delimiters, select only Tab.

  9. Click Next.

  10. Click Finish.

Send text message

To use this feature you must have a third-party contract with Message Media. We recommended your text message include the name of your institution and/or sender to help the recipient identify the source of the text.

  1. Click Text.

  2. You’re brought to the texting screen. In Member: Template Name, select an activity tracking template.

  3. Optionally set additional criteria.

  4. In Message, compose the text message.

  5. Click Submit.

  6. Wait until the Campus Cafe completes sending the message.

Send email

You can email selected results on the People Finder either by feeding the emails into a local email software client (e.g. Outlook) or by using the Campus Cafe email client. The client relies on the customer configuring an email relay. In both cases, Campus Cafe emails preferred emails.

Email vendors often set governor limits (caps) on the number of recipients per email or the total number of emails sent within 24 hours. Campus Cafe relies on the customer’s email provider so questions should be directed to the email provider.

Emailing using local client (email software on your computer)

  1. Select individuals you wish to email.

  2. Click Email > For All Default.

  3. Your locally installed email client will open and the emails will appear in the BCC line.

  4. Compose and send the email as normal.

Emailing using Campus Cafe 

Ensure pop ups are allowed for Campus Cafe.

  1. Select individuals you wish to email.

  2. Click Email > For All Client.

  3. Compose the email.

  4. Click Send.

Add tracking items-sending personalized emails/letters

You can add a batch of items to the activity tracking system based on the people selected in the grid. For example, you may wish to add a phone reminder to call the 10 people on list in 10 days.

This process relies on an administrator configuring activity items. For example, a school may pre-configure a form called PHONE10 that will contain a phone reminder that will be due in 10 days.

Leverage pre-existing activity or workflow

Follow these directions if the activity does not involve sending an email or if the activity is pre-configured with an associated workflow that sends an email.

  1. Select individuals you wish to add the activity to.

  2. Click Add Activity > For All.

  3. In Member: Template Name select an activity tracking template.

  4. Optionally tie the activity to a specific semester. This is useful if the activity relates to a specific class in a specific semester or financial aid for a specific semester.

  5. In Add Only For These People you can choose whether to send the message to everyone selected, only those that do not have the activity tracking item or only those that do not have the item for the set semester.

  6. Optionally add a Comment.

  7. Optionally assign a User.

  8. Optionally add a Long Comment.

  9. Click Submit.

Find related people

You can use the finders to find people related to the individuals returned as results. For example, you may wish to find all parents of a group of students. 

  1. Go to the finder.

  2. Click Expand Filters.

  3. In Relationship Type select one or more types of relationships.
    Tip: If the Relationship Type box does not appear, in the upper left click Hide/Show Fields.

  4. Click Submit.

  5. Click Column Visibility; fields that start with "Relationship" provide additional information. The below are frequently used columns.

    • Relationship Type

    • Relationship Person

    • Relationship Email

    • Relationship Phone

    • Relationship Mobile Phone

Download Related People

To download related people, click Download > Relationships for for All.

Related content

Student Filter (Finder)
Student Filter (Finder)
More like this
Navigation, Search and Help
Navigation, Search and Help
More like this
Degrees/Majors
Degrees/Majors
Read with this
Filters: Base Case Examples
Filters: Base Case Examples
More like this
Development - Career: Find Graduates
Development - Career: Find Graduates
Read with this
Prospect Finder
Prospect Finder
More like this