Process Portal dashboards: Basic searches

How to search

How to construct filters for basic searches

Include an exact phrase

Put quotation marks around the words in the search term: "term". Also, use quotation marks to search on terms with nonalphanumeric characters, such as an at sign (@), or an ampersand (&). Examples:

• To find instances of home loan approvals, enter Instance Name "home loan approval"
• Nonalphanumeric characters: "johndoe@mycompany.com", or "Smith&Jones"

Attention: You cannot include wildcard characters, an asterisk (*) or a question mark (?), within the quotation marks.

Although terms are automatically combined to narrow down the search, you can also use the AND operator to combine terms, for example John AND Smith AND loan.

Because the search function is not case-sensitive, you can enter your terms in lowercase, uppercase, or a combination of lowercase and uppercase, as in the following examples.

• If you enter john smith loan, the search returns the same results as if you entered John Smith loan or JOHN SMITH LOAN.
• If you enter Müller, the search returns the same results as if you entered MÜLLER. However, the search does not return results that contain Muller or Mueller.

Attention: Search response time depends on the number of search hits. You can improve the response time by choosing search terms that are as explicit as possible and combining these terms with the AND operator.

Include variations of a term

Use a question mark (?) as a substitute for single characters in terms. For example, to find Meyer or Meier, enter Me?er

Use the asterisk (*) as a substitute for one or more characters at the beginning, end, or within a term. For example, to find both reject and rejection, enter reject*.

Narrow the search

Filters are automatically combined to narrow your search: filter1 filter2. However, you can also use the AND or plus (+) operators to combine filters: filter1 AND filter2, or +filter1 +filter2.

Restriction: If your filter contains a field, you can include only one search term in the filter.

For example, to show tasks that mention both debit and credit in the subject line, you can enter the filters in one of the following ways:

• Subject debit Space Space Subject credit
• Subject debit Space Space AND Space Space Subject credit
• + Space Space Subject debit Space Space + Space Space Subject credit

Include one term but not another term

To include and exclude terms, use the plus (+) and minus (-) operators together. For example, to find all of your tasks that contain the term loan but are not home loan tasks, enter +loan -home.

Attention: Always start this type of query with the plus (+) operator. You cannot use the minus (-) operator without the plus (+) operator.

Broaden the search

To combine filters, use the OR operator: filter1 OR filter2

For example, to show items that contain debit, credit, or both using free-text search terms, enter Subject debit Space Space OR Space Space Subject credit

In a filter that contains a field name, use commas between the search terms in the filter. For example, to show tasks for several different users, enter User Name Fred, Jim, Tim

You can combine the OR operator with the AND operator. For example, to find all the approval or rejection tasks that are new, enter (approval OR rejection) AND new

Exclude words from the search

To exclude words from your search, use the NOT operator: filter1. NOT filter2 Alternatively, you can use the minus (-) operator: filter1 -filter2.

Restriction: If your filter contains a field, you can include only one search term in the filter.

For example, to show loan-related tasks that are not car loans, you can enter the filters in one of the following ways:

• Subject loan Space Space NOT Space Space Subject car
• Subject loan Space Space - Space Space Subject car

Include numeric data

To search for a number, for example, 9, enter 9 as the search term.

In numeric fields, to search for a range of numbers, use the TO operator: filter1 TO filter2. For example, if you are looking for loan numbers in the range from 1 through 9 and your environment includes a numeric Loan Number field, enter Loan Number [1 TO 9]

Searches for numeric data in text-based fields are always text based. Terms are identified based on whitespace and common punctuation. For example, if you enter Instance Name [1 TO 9], the search returns instances that have terms starting with the characters 1 through 9. Instance names, such as "Order 5", "Order 524563", "Order:5", "Order:524563" are returned because the first character of the term is between 1 and 9. However, instance names, such as "Order5" and "Order524563" are not returned because there is no whitespace or punctuation before the number.

Include a date

Use a date range enclosed in square brackets. Enter the date in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) in this format: year, month, day: [YYYYMMDD TO YYYYMMDD]. You can enter just the year [YYYY], or include hours, minutes, and seconds [YYYYMMDDHHMMSS].

Tip: To handle time zone issues, search from the day before to the day after the date that you are interested in.

For example, to find tasks that are associated with orders that are due from 1 February 2012, use 31 January 2012 as the start date and 2 February 2012 as the end date in your filter: Due Date [20120131 TO 20120202]

Include special characters

You can include any of the following special characters: + - && || ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \

• You cannot include wildcard characters, an asterisk (*) or a question mark (?), within the quotation marks.
• Because special characters are not indexed, you can substitute the character in your search with a space.
• If you include the special character in your search, include a backslash (\) before the character. For example, if the customer name is MyCompany! and the field label is customername, enter customername:"MyCompany\!"
• Because the # character is used to separate words for indexing, the search process ignores it. You cannot even include it by adding a backslash (\) before the character.

Include Japanese characters

When searching for Japanese characters, keep the following points in mind:

• Letters, numbers, and Japanese Katakana characters are searched as one word.
• Kanji and Japanese Hiragana characters are searched as one character.

Combine several filters that contain field names with a free-text search term

Put parentheses around the search filters that contain the field names.

Tip: The opening parenthesis is treated like a full-text search term. After the parenthesis symbol, press the Spacebar key twice, and then type your first field name.

For example, to show tasks from the Loans process application that belong to Fred and mention car loan, enter (Space Space User Name Fred Space Space Process Application Loans Space Space) AND Space Space "car loan"