Description:

Groups are a collection of accounts, contacts, opportunities, or tickets that share a specific condition or characteristic. Groups are used to work with a subset of accounts, contacts, opportunities, or tickets, select data to print on reports, and to send mailings, e-mails, and faxes using the mail merge feature. An account, contact, opportunity, or ticket can be a member of more than one group. Groups can be shared among users.

There are two types of groups:

Standard Groups: (usually referred to as a ‘dynamic group’)
A group based on a specific set of conditions. Each time the group is opened, the accounts, contacts, opportunities, and tickets are re-evaluated using the defined conditions. For example, to target specific accounts for a sales campaign featuring a specific product line, a conditional statement can be built to look for active accounts that purchased related products during the past year. Accounts that meet these conditions are placed in a group and a mail merge can be used to send promotional material to the accounts in the group.

Ad Hoc Groups: There are also times where there is no clear set of conditions to define the correct accounts, contacts, or opportunities for a group. In these instances, an ad hoc group is created. Unlike groups based on conditional statements, ad hoc groups are static: the contacts, accounts, opportunities, and tickets remain the same unless the group is edited. For example, there are 20 tickets to a golf tournament and 19 contacts are invited. It is potentially difficult to create a set of conditions that selects the 19 contacts. Instead, select the contacts from the Contact List view and save the selected contacts in an ad hoc group called Golf Tournament.

Possible Resolution:

To create a Standard Group using group manager:

1. In list view, right-click and select ‘Manage Groups’
2. Highlight the group category (i.e. Accounts, Contacts, etc)
3. Click the ‘Add’ button
4. Click the ‘Properties’ tab
5. Enter a NAME and DESCRIPTION for the group
6. Click the ‘Conditions’ tab
7. Create one or more conditional statements to select the data
8. If necessary, use any of the following Query Builder tabs:
1. Layout tab – Used to define which data appears in the list view
2. Sorting tab -  Used to define how the data is sorted
3. Appearance tab – Used to define the fonts, colors, and so on
4. Defaults tab – Used to define ownership criteria
9. Click the ‘OK’ button
   The Group Manager dialog box reappears, displaying the new group
10. Select ‘Hide Tab’ to prevent the group tab from appearing in the list view
11. Click the ‘Close’ button

To create a Standard Group from the List view:

1. Right-click any group tab and choose ‘Add Group’
2. Click the ‘Properties’ tab
3. Enter a NAME and DESCRIPTION for the group
4. Click the ‘Conditions’ tab
5. Create one or more conditional statements to select the data
6. If necessary, use any of the following Query Builder tabs:
1. Layout tab – Use to define which data appears in the list view.
2. Sorting tab – Use to define how the data is sorted.
3. Appearance tab – Use to define the fonts, colors, and so on.
4. Defaults tab – Use to define ownership criteria.
7. Click the ‘OK’ button

To create an Ad-hoc group:

1. From the Account, Contact, or Opportunity List view, highlight one or more records
2. Right-click anywhere in the grid and choose ‘Add Selected Members to New Group’
3. Click the ‘Properties’ tab
4. Enter a NAME and DESCRIPTION for the group
5. If necessary, use any of the following Query Builder tabs:
1. Layout tab – Use to define which data appears in the list view
2. Sorting tab – Use to define how the data is sorted
3. Appearance tab – Use to define the fonts, colors, and so on
4. Defaults tab – Use to define ownership criteria
6. Click the ‘OK’ button

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