Using An Advanced Search To Find Data File Link Records

Clicking the Advanced Search hyperlink in any "Index" type window that displays it, pops up the Advanced Search Settings Dialog Box (image below).

This dialog box makes it easy to pick one or more of a database record's fields to search, and then configure simple, or complicated rules, for how you want that field searched for single keyword phrase, or a list of them.

The dialog box in this image, shows how the Creation Date field, is going to be searched using 3 separate keywords, that must all be present in the field, but don't have to be together as a single phrase.

This search will scan the list of records currently being displayed in an 'index' window, and is looking for all Data File Link records that were created on a Wednesday, in 2017, during the AM hours.

Advanced Search settings applied to the Creation Date field.

In the project database we ran this search on, the search scanned 2,287 records and in a split second, found the 17 records that matched the search and displayed them.

An advanced searching is looking for a set of records.

Multiple Consecutive Keyword Searches Can Achieve The Same Results As A Single Advanced Search

Further below is a tutorial that shows you how to configure searches using the Advanced Search Settings dialog box. But instead of jumping into that tutorial right now, you might want to read about how you can use multiple, consecutive, regular keyword searches, to achieve the same results that a single, advanced search can do, most of the time.

The advanced search of the Creation Date field that was done above, could be done using 3 consecutive keyword searches in the Search Panel at the bottom of an "Index" window. The image below shows one way of doing these consecutive searches and obtaining the same result as the single advanced search.

Three consecutive, regular searches would be needed to locate the same set of records that the one Advanced Search above
will find.

Each consecutive search, will search the set of records currently displaying in the "Index" window, and it will shorten that list by only displaying the matching records it found. The more searches you do, the shorter the displayed records lists become.

The above searches start with 2,287 records. After the first search (' 2017 '), there's 259 records displayed. After the second search ('wednesday,'), there's 25 records displayed. After the third search (' am'), there's 17 records displayed.

After the final search, there's 17 matching records.

Regular Keyword Searches Can't Search Specific Fields, They Have To Search All Of A Record's Fields

There's nothing wrong with doing multiple consecutive searches to find records, and the majority of time that's just what you'll do. But what a regular keyword search can't give you, is the ability to just search a single, specific field in a record, and especially for more than one 'search phrase', at a time.

Regular keyword searches, take one set of keywords (their search phrase) and scan all the fields in each record to see which ones contain that search phrase. Then the search displays the matching record(s).

This is the reason why 3 consecutive regular keyword searches would have to be done (each with a different search phrase) to find the same set of records that this single advanced search could find at once.

An Advanced Search Example That Searches Two Different Fields

The instructions below are going to show you how to use the Advanced Search Settings dialog box, to search two fields, the Creation Date field and the File Name field, of all the Data File Link records a project owns. This is what the search will be looking for.

All Data File Link records, that are linked to '.PNG' image files, where the records (not the files) were created in 2017, on a Wednesday, during the AM hours.F

Only "Index" windows, such as the Data File Links Index window used in this tutorial, can do Advanced Searches.

So you need to start by opening the appropriate "Index" window, and then click on the Advanced Search hyperlink in the Search panel, at the bottom, center of that window.

Click the Advanced Search hyperlink to perform an advanced search for records.

After the Advanced Search hyperlink is clicked an Advanced Search Settings dialog box, like the one in the image below, is displayed.

If you look at the image below, you'll see that the dialog box is made up of numbered panels, from 1 to 4. In each panel is a set of search components and/or fields where you can type search values into.

The Advanced Search dialog box is displayed.

Each panel lets you do a specialized search on a particular field and you can easily set up multiple field searches. We'll use this dialog box to perform the same search that was done above, but this time, all the search keywords, get entered into this single dialog box, in a special way, and we can specify exactly which fields get searched.

Just as a reminder, this is the search we want to do.

All Data File Link records, that are linked to '.PNG' image files, where the records (not the files) were created in 2017, on a Wednesday, during the AM hours.

It does not matter which order each 'field search' is created in, so I'll start with the settings for the Creation Date field.

This image shows all the settings for this field, and the list of instructions below, shows how values got set.

The search settings for the Creation Date field.

Use this image of a matching record's fields, to help you understand the settings being used in the instructions list below.

A matching record, has it's searched field values highlighted.

We'll start by clicking on the Creation Date field in Panel 1, to tell the search how we want that field searched.

Then in Panel 2, we create a list of the keywords, one per line, that we want searched in the Creation Date field. The keywords are, 2017, wednesday, and am.

By putting these keywords on their own line, we're asking the search to locate each of them, one by one, wherever they're found in that field. Look at the Data File Link record in the image above to see where these keywords would be found in the Creation Date field.

If we'd put all these keywords in one line, like this, '2017 wednesday am', in Panel 2, then that phrase is what we'd be asking the search to do, and it wouldn't have matched any records, because each of the keywords are found in different places in the Creation Date field. They're not lumped together in a single phrase. See, record in the image

In Panel 3, we'll make sure the Contains radio button is clicked on.

In Panel 4, we click on the Must Contain Each Search Value button.

Now, the Creation Date field has the advanced search settings we want applied to it.

Our search is also looking for '.PNG' computer files (image files), so lets configure the File Name field, for the search settings that will look for '.PNG' file types. This image shows all the search settings configured.

Now the File Name field search is configured, and to run the search we'd just click on the Search hyperlink.

This search scanned 2,387 records and found 15 matching records.

The search results find 15 matching records.

Reading about how to do an Advanced Search is more complicated than actually doing one. These searches are easy if you just remember that basically all you're doing is:

Selecting a field to search in panel 1.
Then provide a set of keywords to search in that field in panel 2.
Then tell the dialog box how you want those keywords to be compared and searched in each record. By using the settings in panels 3 and 4
Then repeat steps 1 to 3 for every other field in the record, that you want searched.

How To Modify A Field's Existing Settings

There's one more important thing you need to know and it's this. As you saw in the images above, each search is done on a specific field. You select the field, and set up its search parameters.

After you do that, the dialog box saves those parameters and assigns them a name, that's the same as the field's name. The dialog box also adds a link to those field search settings in the Review Search Settings panel's combo box component (see image).

When you click the down arrow on that combo box, a list of each field's settings names is displayed. If you click on any of them, the dialog box will display that field's settings again so you can modify or review them.

The Review Settings Combo Box lists settings for each
configured field. Click a field name in the combo box to see its
settings displayed again in the dialog box.

Differences Between Advanced Searching And Regular Keyword Searching

The key difference between Advanced Searching and a Regular Keyword Searching, is that Advanced Searching lets you pick the fields you want searched, and set up very specialized ways of searching that field's contents.

But regular searching takes a set of keywords, treats them as a single search phrase, and then looks in every field in a record for a match for that search phrase.

Most of the time, one or two regular keyword searches are going to be all you need to locate what you're looking for, but it's nice to know that Advanced Searching is there, when you need a fine grained search.