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Dynamic Lookups

 

Generating a Dynamic Contact Lookup

  1. You can use the following steps to generate the specially formatted string for both assigning a dynamic user a task and emailing contacts. 
  2. Go to the MinistryPlatform page your Process is tied to (the value under Table Name on the Process record).
  3. Launch the Advanced Search tool used to build user views.
  4. Using the field tree on the left, identify the field you want to select. For example, my Process runs on the Responses table. I want to identify the person who responded and send them an email using one of the steps (see a full example for creating a process).
    • Navigate to the Contact record and expand the folder.
    • Select the Contact_ID field by double-clicking.
  5. Add the fields you want to the advanced search view. Then click SQL View on the Advanced Search tab. This view gives you the special character string you need for the Process Step.
  6. Remove the field alias, which includes the everything after the AS keyword.

Following the example above, this value is correct:

Participant_ID_Table_Contact_ID_Table.[Contact_ID]

Generating a Dynamic User Lookup

  1. You can use the following steps to generate the specially formatted string for both assigning a dynamic user a task and emailing contacts. 
  2. Go to the MinistryPlatform page your Process is tied to (the value under Table Name on the Process record).
  3. Launch the Advanced Search tool used to build user views.
  4. Using the field tree on the left, identify the field you want to select. For example, my Process runs on the Responses table. I want to identify the person who responded and send them an email using one of the steps (see a full example for creating a process).
    • Navigate to the Contact record and expand the folder.
    • Navigate to the User Account record and expand the folder.
    • Select the User Account field by double-clicking.
  5. Then click SQL View on the Advanced Search tab. This view gives you the special character string you need for the Process Step.
  6. Remove the field alias, which includes everything after the AS keyword.

Following the example above, these values are correct:

Participant_ID_Table_Contact_ID_Table.[User_Account]

or

Participant_ID_Table_Contact_ID_Table_User_Account_Table.[User_ID]
Warning: If you use these fields, you must ensure that the field is always valid. In other words, if you want to email the person who responded to an opportunity, this method maps to their Contact record. If that Contact record does not have a valid email address, the Process fails. Similarly, if you assign a task to the Opportunity's primary contact you must confirm that everyone listed as a Primary Contact of an Opportunity has a valid User Account record. Otherwise, the task will not assign correctly.
Note: MinistryPlatform uses a Table Lookup Convention when referring to other fields and tables in the database. See Table Lookup Convention.