One of the most jarring aspects of moving to eTapestry for me was that every Query needs to be created in a Category and saved in order to be used -- even if it's a one-time query (which then must be deleted) or one in which I might want to search one field repeatedly for different values in that field. Previous member management systems I've used, and many databases, offer a way to do a quick ad hoc query without going through all the steps eTap requires.

A few examples might help...

One of the field in our database is the constituent's occupation. In eTapestry, I need to create a save query for Occupation with a specific value, say "Lawyer". To search for Accountants, I need to edit that query, or copy it to make a saved one for Accountants. I could build out a set of 20 or 30 queries, each for a specific Occupation if this was something I used often enough. But what would be so much better is if I could create a Query for Occupation where the value is defined to be "dynamic" or "user-entered", such that when I run the Query, eTap would display a dialog box for me to enter the value of Occupation to e matched, and then execute that query. In that way, one Query would be sufficient.

Another field in our database is class year, because we're an alumni organization. So the Class Year field has about 80 values. If I want to see a quick list of members of the Class of 1995, I need to create a Query for Class Year = 1995. If I then want to look at 1996, I need to edit that Query or Copy it and make a different one. I don't want to build 80 queries for each class year, nor navigate such a long list of queries if I did. But if there were a "dynamic query", where I could define the field of Class Year, and have eTapestry prompt me for the value I want each time I run it, one simple Query would fill the need, now and forever.

Another field we track is the company a constituent works for. If I want to see if anyone works for Google, I need to create a Query just for that. And a different one to see who works at Facebook. And so on. But a dynamic query would allow a single query on the Company field, and I could just enter the value on the fly whenever I wanted to do such a search.

A previous member management system I used allowed creating such queries on the fly with up to three fields, but I'd be satisfied if eTap started with one!