Our software includes several ways for you to create contact lists. You have access to the Manual List tool, which lets you include contacts by checking them off individually, or the Dynamic List tool, which we’ll be talking about today. A dynamic list allows you to create custom rules that will automatically populate your lists. To further improve this feature, we have built a more powerful grouping solution into it that will make it much easier to define more dynamic contact lists to meet your needs.
If you already have dynamic lists created from the old system don’t worry, there’s nothing you need to do! Your existing lists will still work, and they’ll still be editable within the new dynamic list system.
The new Dynamic List feature uses two ways to include contacts into a list:
Rules and
Groups:
- What are Rules? Rules are a set of parameters that you create to compare with your contact’s information, such as their first name, email address, or city. For example, you may use a Rule of “City is Omaha” if you want to make sure a list is made up of contacts only from Omaha. Whether a rule matches up with a contact’s information or not will determine if that contact gets added to the list or is left off the list. This also depends on Group settings however, which we’ll go over below.
- What’s a Group? Groups are one of the new major additions to the Dynamic List section. Simply put, a Group is a set of multiple Rules. A list can also now contain multiple Groups of these Rules, each with their own settings. This allows you to break apart the Rules and make them more dynamic, which gives you more control over the contacts you’d like to be added.
Each Group of Rules has two options to choose between at the top: “
Can Match Any Rule” or “
Must Match Every Rule”. These options will determine how that particular group will compare it’s containing Rules against a contact’s information.
- What is “Can Match Any Rule? – This options tells that Group, or set of Rules, that you want the list to include every contact that matches up with Any of the Rules contained within it. If you have 3 separate Rules in that Group, a contact will be included if it matches Any of those 3 Rules you set within it. This is assuming there is only one Group of Rules. Multiple Groups changes things a bit, but we’ll go into that more later in this article.
Example:
Let’s say you have one Group with 3 rules. 1st rule is “Company Name is RE/Max”, 2nd Rule is “City is Omaha”, and the 3rd rule is “Last Name is Smith”.
If you choose the option “Can Match Any Rule” a contact will be added if any single one of those Rules matches their information.
Let’s say a contact’s company name is Prudential, their city is Chicago, and their last name is Smith. That contact would still get added when using this option because at least one Rule matches. Again this is only assuming we are using one Group of Rules.
- What is “Must Match Every Rule? – This option will tell a Group to only includes contacts that have matching information for Every Rule within it. If you have 3 separate Rules within one Group and have this option selected, a contact will only be included in your list if it matches the criteria of all of those 3 Rules.
Example:
Let’s use the same 3 rules as the above example: 1st rule is “Company Name is RE/Max”, 2nd Rule is “City is Omaha”, and the 3rd rule is “Last Name is Smith”. In order for the contact to be added all 3 rules must match up with their information.
If the company name and city both matched up with the Rules, but their last name wasn’t Smith, they wouldn’t be added to the list. Once again this is still assuming we’re only using one Group of Rules.
There is also a new counter in the upper right hand side of the Dynamic List tool. When you click it to refresh, it will show you an updated count of contacts each time you add a rule or a group. This comes in handy to see if your list is growing or shrinking to help you gauge whether you have the right conditions set.
How Are Multiple Groups Used? Multiple Groups are going to be a great way to add more dynamics to your lists. They will allow you to mix different sets of rules with their own options all together so that you can refine your lists to meet your needs.
Example:
Let’s say you want to add contacts to your list from any of 3 company names, but you only want to target a specific city. You could do this by creating 2 Groups. Create your 1st Group with 3 Rules within it: 1st Rule “Company name is RE/Max”, 2nd Rule “Company name is Prudential”, and 3rd Rule “Company name is Century 21”.
Since you would like to add contacts that match up with any of those companies you would choose the option “Can Match Any Rule” for that Group. Then for the city you would create a new Group with only one rule of “City is Omaha”.
This will now allow you to make a list where someone could belong to any of those 3 companies, but only contacts residing in Omaha.
There’s one last thing to explain about multiple Groups. You’ll notice when adding more than one Group a new options box will appear above all of the Groups. It has the options
“Can match Any Group” and “
Must Match Every Group”. Group options work very similarly to the options for Rules:
- “Can match Any Group” – If you choose this option a contact will be added to your list if they match up with the criteria of any of the Groups. If you have 3 Groups of Rules, all contacts that meet the criteria for Any of these 3 Groups will be added to the list.
Example 1:
Group 1 has two rules of “Last name is Smith” and “City is Omaha” with the rule option of “Can match Any Rule”.
Group 2 has one rule of “Company name is RE/Max”.
Let’s say a contact’s name is Stan Smith, he is from Chicago, and his company name is Prudential. They would still get added with this Group option because their information matches correctly with at least one of the Groups of Rules and that particular Rule set’s options (match any rule, in this case last name).
Example 2:
Group 1 has two rules of “Last name is Smith” and “City is Omaha” but this time the rule option of “Must match Every Rule” is selected.
Group 2 has one rule of “Company name is RE/Max”.
Stan Smith from Chicago with the company of Prudential wouldn’t get added this time. The first Group’s Rule option has changed to be more strict, requiring every one of its rules to match, so now he doesn’t match either of the 2 Groups requirements, and as a result he won’t be added to the list.
- “Must Match Every Group” – If you choose this option a contact will be added to your list only if they match up with the criteria of each and every Group of Rules. If you have 3 Groups of Rules, only contacts that meet the criteria for each and every of these 3 Groups will be added to the list.
Example 1:
Group 1 has two rules of “Last name is Smith” and “City is Omaha” with the rule option of “Can match Any Rule”.
Group 2 has one rule of “Company name is RE/Max”.
Stan Smith from Chicago with the company Prudential won’t be added to the list this time as his information only matches up with the requirements of the first rule.
Example 2:
Group 1 has two rules of “Last name is Smith” and “City is Omaha” with the rule option of “Can match Any Rule”.
Group 2 has one rule of “Company name is RE/Max”.
Jasper Jones is from Omaha and is with the company RE/Max. Jasper would get added to the list because in this case both Groups and their options match.
As you can see Groups really opens up list the creation process that allows for much more refined results. At first, this may look like a slightly more complicated concept for putting together lists if you were used to our original dynamic list system, but with some practice we think you’ll love the added functionality that this new feature provides.
If you have feedback please send us a message at
support@renmind.com to let us know what questions and comments you might have about the new Dynamic List tool.
