A segment is a saved set of conditions, such as “donors who gave in the last 12 months and live in Leeds”. Because it stores the conditions rather than a list of names, running it again later picks up everyone who matches at that moment.

Before you start

  • Running segments needs relationships:read:contacts; saving and deleting them, and tagging or emailing their contacts, need relationships:write:contacts.
  • Exporting needs the Exporter module and exporter:run:exports.
  • Contacts you aren’t allowed to see are never included in your results.

Build and run a segment

  1. Open Relationships → Segments. The Segments tab opens the builder; the Stacks tab is for segment stacks.
  2. Choose Add, then Add direct rule for a rule on the contact, Payment record…, Touchpoint record…, Touchpoint activity… or Membership record… for a block of rules about related records, or Nested group.
  3. For each rule, choose the field, the operator and the value. In a record block, choose whether the most recent record or any ever must meet its rules. Membership blocks only match memberships you have access to.
  4. Set Match: to All conditions (AND) or Any condition (OR) for each group. Nest groups to mix the two.
  5. Choose Run Segment.

The results show how many contacts match, then 50 rows at a time with their name, email, location, payments, touchpoints and when they joined. Choose Load more for the next 50.

See Segment operators for every condition and operator.

Save, load or delete a segment

Choose Saved Segments to open the drawer.

  • Save: enter a name in Segment name… and choose Save current. Saving always creates a new saved segment; it doesn’t overwrite one you loaded.
  • Load: choose Load beside a saved segment, then Run Segment to see today’s results.
  • Delete: select the bin icon. This deletes the saved conditions, not the contacts.

Act on the results

Choose Segment Actions above the results.

  • Add tag to all and Remove tag from all apply to the contacts currently loaded. If more pages remain, the form warns you; choose Load more until everyone is loaded if you want to tag the whole segment.
  • Send email to all sends to the full segment, including contacts not yet loaded. Choose a Consent purpose, enter a Subject and Message, and confirm. Only contacts who have said Yes to that purpose on email are sent to; choose Transactional — no consent needed only for genuinely transactional messages. Children and deceased contacts are never sent to. Afterwards you’ll see how many were sent and how many weren’t, and why.

Before you send, check the purpose matches what you’re writing about. Sending can’t be recalled.

Export the contacts

Choose Export above the results, or beside a segment in the Saved Segments drawer. Export uses the builder’s current conditions, which may differ from the last run if you’ve edited them since. Choose your columns and format, then Start export; the file is prepared in the background. See Export contacts from a segment.