I was looking forward to clarification on how & why to use focus groups instead of tagging, but so far I am unconvinced, as both answers posted thus far seem to include the step of tagging somewhere in their process anyway. Or have I misread the two replies?
It seems focus groups and tagging (or really the search process to determine who to tag) operate the same way, but tags have the advantage of allowing you to move through the resulting list of tagged people easily... using the "next tagged" arrow at the bottom of the family view. Just because individuals are in a focus group, doesn't give you quick access to those individuals for the purposes of, say, fixing an error. On the other hand, I have recently learned I can fix a whole lot of things straight from the Search Results, which would require neither tags nor a focus group. In pondering further as I typed, I suppose the advantage to defining a focus group comes when you are routinely exporting or reporting, because the list of individuals to include is dynamically built -- saving you the steps of re-running the search and tagging the results to be sure to include newly-added individuals, then exporting / reporting on tagged individuals. "It depends" on your purpose for identifying a set of individuals... right? --Paula in Texas Researching: Adair Baker Beasley Benson Betz Bigley Blagrave Burton Chapman Clement Clough Coppernoll Costine Daulton Dinwiddie Doody Ellis Exline Field Floran Floyd Gates Goodale Gordon Gump Hale Harbaugh Hind Hopkins Hughes Hurdle Jones Klein Koyle Laswell McDonald Misner Passwaters Pelton Roberts Roche Ryburn Sanford Short Singer Sullivan Weller Williams ________________________________ From: Ron Taylor <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sat, February 25, 2012 9:15:13 AM Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Focus groups vs. tagging A tag is an actual field in the individual or marriage record which can be used in a search to locate those records with the tag on or off. A focus group is a collection of criteria that can be used as the logic to filter a sub-set of the database dynamically and is not the actual records. The results of a search for records in the focus group could be tagged but as more records are added to the database, the new ones will not be automatically tagged when they satisfy the criteria in the focus group. A fresh search for the focus group would identify every record in that filter. One function of the focus group is to export a portion of the database. Records filtered by the focus group can easily be pushed out to a separate file which can then be sent to another researcher with only those records that are of interest for him/her. I find it very useful in Legacy to execute a detailed search for the focus group, tag the search results, and then in the Legacy Export...check the radio button "All records with an individual tag of:", set the tag number, and then check the three boxes under that selection. Those boxes are labelled: "Export all Spouses of Tagged Individuals", "Export all Children of Tagged Individuals", and "Export all Parents of Tagged Individuals". By checking those three optional boxes, not only are all the records in the focus group exported but also the individuals connected to them which essentially exports complete group sheets that include the tagged set. In summary...a tag is temporary data and a focus group is a collection criteria used to filter records. Focus groups can be saved and re-loaded for various purposes. You could have a focus group for collaboration with Aunt Margaret and another for data sharing with Grandma Johnson. I'm sure others have even more imaginative uses for these tools. Ron Taylor Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
