Search Your PAC Data with Ease and Accuracy

PASS utilizes SQL Server to power our epacInfo® software. The SQL Full-Text Index is unlike traditional SQL queries, which match exact phrases or keywords. Full-Text Index enables users to perform more complex searches, including fuzzy searches, stemming, out-of-order words search, and wildcard search.

This capability proves invaluable for applications requiring advanced search functionality, such as PAC Disbursement maps and our PAC Match Charity Search tool that allows user to search over a million charities with high efficiency and flexibility.

Here are some tips and examples of how they can be applied:

1. “Color” vs. “Colour”: If a user searches for “color,” but the database contains entries with the term spelled as “colour,” a fuzzy search could still return relevant results.
2. “Organization” vs. “Organisation”: Similar to the previous example, a fuzzy search can handle variations in spelling such as “organization” and “organisation” to ensure relevant entries are retrieved regardless of the spelling used.
3. Verb tense variations: Searching for “run” should return results for “running” and “ran.””
4. Plural Forms: Fuzzy search can handle pluralization variations. For example, searching for “cat” could retrieve results containing “cats.” Another example: searching for “child” returns both “child” and “children.”
5. Out of order words search: There is no need to enter words in the right order. Searching for “sacred heart Boston” would yield “BOSTON ACADEMY OF THE SACRED HEART INC.”
6. Wildcard Search: searching for “india* child edu* found*” returns INDIAS CHILDREN AND AGED RELIEF AND EDUCAITON FOUNDATION,” which contains a typo.  This is a good way to get around misspelled charity names in the IRS database (there are plenty of them, believe it or not).

The SQL technology is built into PASS’ epacInfo® software and is available to all epac users. Clients with websites utilizing PAC Match and Candidate Contribution maps also benefit. For more information about how your PAC can benefit from using a PASS PAC website and our PAC match services, contact Mary O’Reilly (moreilly@pass1.com).