Searching two data types at once to have results displayed in one list

[joefarrowsmith]

Hi All

In my app I’ve got Users as well as Contacts. The difference is that Users log in and have their own accounts. The Contacts are just other people that each User knows which I think is pretty standard. I want to be able to do a search on a page that returns matching results from BOTH the Contacts AND Users data types in one repeating group. For example you might want to send a message to some of your own Contacts AND other Users of the app that match the same criteria but who you don’t know. How might I do this? I’ve been looking at “Merge With:” under a search but this doesn’t seem to enable it. I’ve checked the manual but Merge With wasn’t described fully enough and I can’t find anything else. Can someone point me in a helpful direction?
Many thanks

[adamhholmes]

One way is to set the content type of the RG to text. Then you can do a search for contacts AND Users and merge them into a single datasource (you’ll need to use a text field on both - probably email address would be most suitable).

Then you’d have to do searches in each cell to match the email address with any other data (such as name) you want to display, and the same for any workflow actions you’d be making. I’m not sure how fast/slow it would be with all those searches though (I guess it depends on how much data you’ll be loading).

Another way (much simpler and cleaner in my opinion) would be to have another datatype to use as the RG content type, which can have a field for either Contact or User.

Then the RG datasource can be a search for that datatype, then you can display any info you want inside each cell, based on whether it is a contact or a user.

[joefarrowsmith]

Thank you so much for this. It’s given me useful food for thought. In a way I’m pleased it’s not as simple as I imagined (although I’m liking your second scenario) which makes me feel better as I still had no idea. So thank you. This moves me forwards.