The Membership Query Center includes query types for chapters, sections, and committees. This article explains what each type returns and what to check before you use it, including a section-roster query type with invoice-order columns that do not work. For help building conditions, choosing output fields, running queries, and downloading results, see Design and Run a Query.
Prerequisites
- Your role must be allowed to run the query type you want. If you are not allowed to run it, it will not appear in the picker.
- To download results, your role must also be allowed to download results for that query type.
Open the Membership Query Center
- Go to Membership & Committees › Queries.
- Choose New Query, then select the category and query type you need from the options below.
List Chapters or Sections as Plain Records
Use Chapters to list every chapter record in your Rhythm account, along with the organization linked to each chapter. Use Sections to list every section record; this query type does not join any extra records. Both query types default to name and type, sort by name, and include inactive records as well as active chapters or sections. If you only want active records, add a condition on the active flag.
Get a Chapter's Roster with What Was Paid
Chapter Roster/Memberships lists chapter memberships with one row for each chapter on a membership. If a person belongs to two chapters, that person appears once for each chapter. The query joins the contact, the contact's organization, the chapter, and the order recorded on that chapter entry. Because the order comes from the chapter entry, a chapter added on its own order shows that order separately from the membership's main order. The default columns are name, type, package, and expiration date, sorted by name. To total memberships per chapter instead of per row, export the results and summarize them with a pivot table or similar tool outside Rhythm.
A membership's chapter affiliation is meant to stay on the record after the membership becomes inactive, expires, or is cancelled, so this query can still show a lapsed member's last chapter for historical reporting.
Warning
This query type's identifier is used by the Chapter Center saved-query check when chapter officers download their own roster from the Portal. If you rename or replace a saved query that chapter officers use, keep it on this query type, or their downloads stop working.
Warning
A saved chapter or section roster query that filters Origin or Status with a capitalized literal, such as Principal or Active, can return zero members when the stored values use different casing. If a roster export comes back empty even though matching members exist, check the exact casing of any Origin or Status condition against the values the query returns.
Tip
Exported Join Date values for a chapter roster can show as a plain date on some rows and as a full date-and-time value, including midnight and a time-zone offset, on others. This mixed format can affect sorting and spreadsheet handling, so reformat the column after exporting if you see both formats.
Rhythm does not offer a standard way to query historical chapter membership, such as former chapter members over a past date range, expired non-renewed members grouped by prior chapter, or the chapter history shown on a membership's History tab. A membership query's Chapter Name field reflects only the chapter a membership belongs to now, not any chapter it belonged to previously. To see which chapter someone selected on a past membership application, run the Applications query instead and add the Chapters output field; it is not included by default.
To bill only one chapter's members through a billing run, first query that chapter's members with this query type. There is no direct chapter condition on a billing run, so add the membership status reason field, export the results, set a shared status reason on those records with a mass update, and then use that status reason as the billing run criterion.
Get a Section's Roster
Section Roster/Memberships works like the chapter roster. It returns one row for each section on a membership and joins the contact and the contact's organization. It also offers an Order group of columns.
Warning
The Order columns on this query type do not work. They are joined incorrectly, so they return blank for every row instead of showing what was paid for the section dues. If you need to see what a member paid for a section, use a different report or check the order directly; this query type's Order columns will not show it.
The section column group on this query type is labeled Primary Section, but it names the section on that row's entry. Do not read that label as meaning this member's main section. To see which members are assigned to a section, add this field from the membership's section relationship to your output columns. The plain Sections query type above lists section records only and does not show membership assignments.
Warning
Filtering members by section name with an "in list" condition can miss matches when the listed sections are inactive, even though section status is not part of your criteria. If an "in list" filter on section names returns fewer members than expected, check whether any listed sections are inactive.
A membership query's Section Name output can lag behind the record. After a section is removed from a membership, the query may keep returning the previously assigned section for a time instead of reflecting the change immediately. Separately, a section query can keep listing someone as part of a section after their underlying membership term has ended, when the section entry itself has no expiration or active-status condition of its own. If you need only current section participants, check whether the section entry has its own end date or status instead of relying on the parent membership's dates alone.
Tip
A section's join or renewal date reflects when the section application or renewal was processed, not when dues for it were paid. There is no way to make this date reflect a payment date instead, so use it as a proxy for join or renewal timing, not payment timing.
List Committees, and Who Serves on Them
Committee lists your committee records, including names and types, sorted by name. Committees belong to a separate application from the rest of Membership, but you can still query them here. Parent and child committees are separate records with no membership roll-up between them. Querying a parent committee's members returns only people seated on the parent itself, not everyone seated on its child committees, so a parent committee cannot be used as an aggregate roster for downstream reporting or for inherited access to files or other resources. Two additional query types show who serves on committees:
| Query type | Rows returned | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Committee Members (All) | Every committee seat that has ever existed, including past, current, and future seats, with a computed Participation column of Future, Current, or Past | You need a full service history for nominations, recognition, or bylaws compliance |
| Committee Members (Current) | Only seats whose term includes today | You only need to know who is on a committee right now |
Both query types join the committee, the contact, the term, the contact's organization and parent organization, and the contact's own membership record. They sort by committee, then position, then contact name. Each row is one committee seat, not one contact, so a contact holding two positions on the same committee appears on two rows. If you use Bulk Changes to mass-delete rows from these results, Rhythm removes the contact's entire committee membership, not just the one position on that row, so review a contact's other positions before mass-deleting if you only meant to remove one of them.
Committee service is term-based, so the same person can appear as both a past member and a current member when they hold more than one term. Because of this, a "past members" query can include people who also hold a current term today. To report only people who are no longer serving at all, cross-reference the current and past results outside Rhythm, or ask your administrator to set a committee role or category such as Emeritus on former members so you can filter for it directly.
Tip
A contact with more than one membership appears once per membership on these query types, so the same committee seat can appear on more than one row. If your row count looks doubled, check whether any members hold two memberships. Any field that shows a related person's or committee's name, such as Contact, usually has a matching ID field in the same column group; add that field instead if you need the identifier rather than the display name.
Warning
On Committee Members (All), a seat whose end date is today already counts as Past. On Committee Members (Current), that same seat still counts as current because this query type includes the end date. If you compare row counts between the two query types on the last day of a term, they will differ by exactly those seats. A seat that starts today already counts as current in both query types. Also, the Participation pick list for this query type uses lower-case values (current, past, future), while the values the query returns are capitalized. Add the Participation column and check the returned values before you rely on a filter from the pick list.
Committee Members (Current) also includes a Committee column that is always empty. Use the Committee group of columns instead for the committee's details.
Warning
On Committee Members (All), filtering by Committee with Equals may return no rows even when matching committees exist; Contains Text has been reported to work instead. Some accounts have also seen the Committee and Committee ID fields swapped, with Committee holding an identifier and Committee ID holding a name. Add both fields and check what each returns before relying on either as a filter.
The current committee-member query types join each seat to the contact's own membership record, but they do not require that membership to be active. A committee's active-member figure or member list counts only active, current memberships, so a current committee-member query can return fewer rows than the committee's own count when some seat holders have a terminated or inactive membership. If a committee's query results consistently undercount its member list, check whether the missing people's membership records are inactive or terminated. Re-saving an affected committee-member record, or adding a missing start date, has cleared some cases of a member missing from these results.
Warning
After two contacts are merged, membership and chapter or section roster queries can keep pointing to the old, merged contact record. You may see a row you cannot open, with "Cannot load contact," or an inflated active-member count from a duplicate entry. This has been reported as a lingering, minor issue after a merge; if you see it, treat the affected row as a leftover from the merge rather than a real second member.
You cannot take the results of one saved query and add them straight into a committee. To update committee membership in bulk from a list you have already built, use a custom data task instead of trying to combine two saved queries; see Import or Update Committee Memberships in Bulk below.
Result
Each query type opens in the query designer with its default columns and sort, ready for you to add conditions, choose output fields, and run it like any other Membership query type.
Import or Update Committee Memberships in Bulk
If the people you want to move are already in a committee, select their rows from a committee-related query's results and use Bulk Changes › Mass Update › Committee ID to assign them to a specific sub-committee in one operation. A Mass Update from a chapter, section, or committee query also accepts a comma-separated list of IDs for the chapter_ids, section_ids, chapters, sections, or committee fields, so you can move a group of records to more than one chapter or section at once.
Tip
To bulk-inactivate committees, use Bulk Changes with an expression rather than simply clearing Is Active on the mass-update form; clearing the checkbox directly has not reliably updated records this way. Test your expression on a single record before running it against the full result set.
You can also use a chapter or section roster query as the source file for Mass Updates. Export the membership ID together with the Chapter or Section field, edit the file to the values you want, then upload it under Membership & Committees › Mass Updates using the matching service and map the membership ID column as the row identifier. Updating chapter or section memberships this way does not change the membership's expiration date.
To add people to committees that already exist, use Membership & Committees › Custom Data Task › Import Records, choose the committee-membership import target, and map your file's columns to the matching import fields. The file needs a Contact ID and Committee ID for each row; you can find a committee's ID in its 360 page's URL. For a committee history import specifically, also include a committee position ID for each row. The Committee Memberships query does not return this identifier as an output field, so copy it from the committee position's own setup page instead. Beyond Committee ID and Contact ID, you can include optional columns for Position, Start Date, and End Date, matching the same fields the Committee Memberships query returns.
Tip
A committee you just created can take a little while to show up in these query types and in their counts, even though the record itself was saved. If a brand-new committee seems to be missing, wait a few minutes and run the query again before assuming something went wrong.
Add or Update Committee Members in Bulk
Adding many people to a committee at once, or changing many existing committee memberships together, uses your Rhythm account's bulk tools rather than the query types above.
- Use Import Records against the Committee Memberships service, not the Committees service, when you need to create new committee membership records for a set of people. The Committees service holds the committee records themselves, not who serves on them, and does not expose the fields a committee-membership import needs.
- Use Mass Update against a membership query when you are changing fields on committee membership records that already exist, such as start and end dates for people already seated. The right tool depends on whether you are creating new committee membership records or updating existing ones, so confirm which case you are in before you start.
- If neither of the above covers what you need, a custom data task against committee membership records has also been used to add a set of contacts to a committee at once. Guidance on when a custom data task is needed instead of the standard import or mass update has not been fully consistent, so if you are unsure which applies to your case, confirm with your association's Rhythm administrator or Support before running a large change.
Warning
Using Bulk Changes to set a new start and end date on an existing committee membership record overwrites that record's dates instead of preserving the earlier period as its own history entry. If you need to keep a member's prior year as a separate service record, add a new committee membership record for the new period rather than editing the existing one's dates.
Warning
Committee term start and end date fields can appear in a bulk update's field list without also appearing in the data dictionary, and the exact date format or expression a bulk update accepts for them is not established. Test a bulk date update on a small sample before relying on it, and confirm the result in a query afterward. Separately, using Bulk Changes › Change One Committee › Mass Update › Terms to update a committee's terms has been observed to fail after reaching its final step; if that happens, make the same change directly on the committee's own record instead.
Related
For memberships, add-ons, applications, and billing run actions instead, see Query Memberships, Add-Ons, and Applications. To see one chapter's or section's roster in context instead of as a query, see that chapter's or section's 360 page.