Advanced Search Criteria -- How to exclude blank fields (e.g. Email must contain @) [ Edited ]

[alietzow]

I'm using Advanced Search Options to Create Lookup and save to a Group.  

1) Group Membership, Add/Remove Contacts, Edit Criteria.  I have 13 fields that are all OR fields but only 1 AND.  Preview shows 281 records, but some have blank email addresses.  I need only records WITH an email address, so ...  

2) I've tried numerous options, including Operator "Contains Data", which simply removes two records (don't know why), and "Contains" value "_@_".   Neither option works.  The query still returns lots and lots of records with a NULL value for E-Mail Address.

3) I've tried putting the exclusion at the top of the stack and at the bottom, as well as deleting the entry and starting all over.  

How does one exclude records with a data field that is NULL?  

[alietzow · Accepted solution]

Roy - Bingo!  Until you mentioned this, I never looked for a "(" or ")".  Now that I see them, and have added those delimiters properly, the system quickly retrieves 209 records WITH email addresses, instead of 281 but with 72 that don't have and email address.   Excellent, and thank you!   

[Roy_Laudenslager]

I suspect you're not grouping the ORs with parenthesis to control query evaluation.

[alietzow · Accepted solution]

Roy - Bingo!  Until you mentioned this, I never looked for a "(" or ")".  Now that I see them, and have added those delimiters properly, the system quickly retrieves 209 records WITH email addresses, instead of 281 but with 72 that don't have and email address.   Excellent, and thank you!