About groups

A group is a defined set of records that belong to the same type of entity. You can create a group of person, company, lead, case, opportunity, quote, order, or custom entity records based on filter criteria. These criteria can be simple or complex. For example, All IT managers in Dublin or All marketing managers in the telecoms sector in London, Dublin, or Manchester, who attended our seminar last year, but who have not yet replied to our invitation mail shot.

A group can be static or dynamic:

• A static group stores the query that generated the group and a snapshot of the records that matched the query criteria when you saved the group. Static groups are useful because they create a list of records that you can manage. You can manually exclude records from the group or add new records to the group by rerunning the query or manually adding records.
  If a record in a static group has been deleted since the group was created, a message is displayed the next time you open the group stating that the group contains deleted records.
• A dynamic group stores only the query that generates the group contents. Each time you open a dynamic group, the query runs and the group contents are refreshed. A dynamic group is like a report as it always returns up-to-date information about records that currently match the criteria. If a record changes and no longer meets the group criteria, it is no longer included in the group. Similarly, if a record changes and meets the criteria, it is added to the group. You cannot manually exclude records from the group or add new records to the group. Instead, you must change the query. Dynamic groups are used as the data source for list gadgets on the interactive dashboard.

How to use groups

Task	Help
Create a group of records that have a common criteria.	Creating a group
You can export group information to a CSV or text file for use in other applications.	Exporting group information
You use groups to perform a mail merge create a task for all members of the group send mass emails add contacts to a Mailchimp audience	Performing a mail merge Creating a group task Sending a mass email to a group Adding contacts to a Mailchimp audience
When you've performed actions on a group, you can refresh the group to ensure it's up to date.	Group action buttons
You can add records to a static group.	Adding records to a group from the group details screen
You can exclude records from a static group.	Editing a group
A group contains links to each person or company associated with a record in the group. If you click a person or company link, the person or company information is displayed in a read-only pop up window. If you want to open the Person Summary screen or the Company Summary screen and edit this information or drill down further, you can do one of the following: Create a dashboard list gadget using the group as the data source. This works for dynamic groups only. You can use the gadget filter to search for records in the group. Create and save an Advanced Find instead of a dynamic group. You can perform actions such as a mail merge on the matching records. When you click a record link, the record summary screen opens and you can edit the information or drill down further.	Adding a new gadget to a dashboard List gadget       Using Advanced Find Creating and updating a saved search Performing actions on search lists