How Merge Reports Work

In addition to merging data into your content one field at a time, you can select and merge full reports. Then you can filter the report output and edit its appearance. Merged reports extend data access to your marketing and survey communications so you can develop more dynamic and contextually relevant content.

In most cases, a primary filter is applied to limit the report output so that customers see only their own information. For example, if a report displays a list of all open incidents, customers see only their own open incidents when they view the merged report. Primary filters are automatically applied in the following cases:

• contacts.c_id—Primary filter for any mailing (broadcast or transactional) and any survey invitation message. If merging a report on a web page, the contact must be recognized by click-through parameters or cookies.
• incidents.i_id—Primary filter for any transactional mailing or survey that is sent using incident rules.
• opportunities.op_id—Primary filter for any transactional mailing or survey that is sent using opportunity rules.
• chats.chat_id—Primary filter for any transactional mailing or survey that is sent using chat rules.

In certain situations, you may want to disable the primary filter in the merged report, which can be done by clearing the Automatically Apply Primary Filter check box on the Merge Report window. However, special handling is required to ensure that the resulting data is appropriate for your audience. For example, if you want to include a report in a closed incident survey listing each customer’s open incidents, the automatic primary filter can restrict the report to show only the incident that triggered the survey. If you disable the primary filter, the report shows all incidents for all contacts. To prevent this, you can manually add a primary filter by editing the report and adding a filter on contacts.c_id = ‘’. If you then save the report and send the survey, the merged report filters on individual c_id values and displays to customers only incidents associated with their contact record. (Filters can also be performed on incidents.i_id, opportunities.op_id, and chats.chat_id, as needed.)

Caution: Disabling the automatic primary filter removes safeguards intended to restrict the scope of the report to the records related to the recipient. As a result, all data is returned for the report just as it would if opened from the Reports explorer. Depending on how the report is configured, this can be processor intensive and, in some cases, result in contacts receiving information related to other contacts. Unless a primary field filter has been added to the report, we recommend that this check box remain selected.

When merging a report into your content, you must select a preview contact to be used for filtering data on the Preview tab of the content editor. This filter limits the data shown in the preview and provides a more accurate representation of the finished content. You can also edit the merge report display properties and set a default value to be used when no data is returned.

From the Preview tab, you can also use the optional Preview Contact field to filter your preview by a particular contact. This lets you see how your dynamic content, such as merge fields and conditional sections, looks in your content. For example, if you have a conditional section for contacts in a specific postal code, you can preview your message to a single contact who matches a specific postal code to see if your conditional section works as intended. This improves the accuracy of your messages and, ultimately, saves you time.