Reports: Use smart fields to enhance constituent report building and mailings

In this article:

How do smart fields work?

With LGL's smart field reporting feature, you can create customized, calculated fields that can be used both in constituent reports and in mailings.

The fields available for this type of customization are:

  • Total Giving
  • First Gift
  • Last Gift
  • Largest Gift
  • Volunteer hours

For example, if you are continually pulling reports that should include information about a constituent's total giving to your Annual Campaign this fiscal year and last fiscal year, you could create two total giving smart fields, like this:

Once this is done, you will have two new fields in your "Gift/Pledge/Goal Fields" options for custom report building:

These fields will also be available for use as new merge fields in any mailings that you do as well:

Creating a new smart field

To create a new smart field, go to the Reports > Constituent Reports > Smart Fields page, and click the Add smart field button.

From there, you can name and describe your smart field. The name will be used to generate the mail merge code, if used in a mailing, and will display in the "Smart Fields" tab on the report customization screen.

Then you can save the field, and it will display in your list of smart fields.

Using smart fields in mailings

By default, all of your smart fields are available to use in LGL mailings. Just go to your Merge Field Reference to find the one you want to use.

NOTE: If you don't want a particular smart field to be listed in your Merge Field Reference, simply uncheck the "Use in Mailings?" checkbox within the "Smart" field, as shown here:

Using a total giving smart field to generate a list of gifts in your mailing

Read this help article for instructions on generating a list of gifts in your mailing.

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