How can I filter (not sort) Contacts for a field that is for empty or null

Question

When I am in any of the modules, I can search (filter) for things like FIELD NAME - STARTS WITH - some value. For example, I can find all leads where the company name starts with ACME. If I want to find all leads where the company name is blank, though, it seems impossible. The REPORTS module allows me to report on a field being empty, but if I want to bring up those companies in the Leads (or Contacts or Accounts or any other) module, I see no way to do it. Yes, in some cases I can sort by the field, but

1) That limits me to one field of filtering and

2) That brings up other values at the bottom of the list, which I can't have since I am doing mass updates and need the list to contain only records that meet my "null" or "empty" criteria.

I have tried searching for company-IS-space and company-IS-null or IS "" or BLANK or EMPTY. How can I do this search without writing new custom PHP pages? Surely, Sugar has a feature to allow end users to filter for records that are empty.

Rick Moss · Accepted Answer

Hi Rick, I do not know of any way to filter for null values in a module search, but I may have a workaround you can use. You may be able to update your data through exporting and importing from a report. First, create a Rows and Columns report with the filters necessary to generate the list of data you need to update. Make sure that the ID field is a display column, along with any required fields in the module. Also include whatever field(s) you are trying to update. Run the report and export it. Open the .csv file in Excel and update the data as needed. Save it as a .csv file to your computer. In Sugar, access the Import wizard for the relevant module from the navigation bar. On the step where you upload the file, make sure to select the option "Create new records and update existing records." This will match the Sugar IDs from your file to the existing data and make the necessary updates when the import runs (which is why the report needs to include the ID column). Complete the rest of the wizard, do not apply any duplicate checking on that step. Run the import to update the data. Hope this can help with what you are trying to accomplish! Megan