You use the Search dialog in IFS Applications pages to find the specific data you want to work with. The Search dialog includes the following options:
You can open the Search dialog in the following ways,
An IFS Applications Page must be open
If you choose to save a search, it will be saved in your profile. If you choose to share a saved search with another user it will create a task in the receivers to-do list in the task panel.
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Open an IFS Application page and open the search dialog via F3 or via the Search button in the page toolbar. If you are working in a master detail page like e.g. the Customer Order page which contains an order header and order lines, this will open the search dialog for the header. To open the search dialog for the lines/details click Shift+F3 or select Search in Context via the Context menu.
The first time you use the search dialog in a page it will open with a few key fields visible. There are two options to show more search fields:
If you have used the search dialog before you can select previous search from the Saved Searches drop-down box. It also contains your saved searches, read more about Saved Searches.
Figure 1: Search Dialog with key field visible
Figure 2: "Show all fields" is chosen, options "Hide empty fields" and "Restore fields" are available
Enter Search Conditions
There are many different options to enter your search conditions and they differ depending on the type of field. There are numerical fields, text fields, date fields etc.
If a field is connected to basic data you can click .. to select values from the List of Values dialog.
Figure 3. List of values for Site
If it's a date field you can click .. to open the date picker dialog where you can choose a date.
Figure 4. Example date picker
If there are predefined values available for the field you can click the drop-down arrow to open the list and pick the value from there.
Figure 5. Drop-down list with available Statuses
The table below lists the available search conditions or search syntax examples:
Symbol Condition Example = Equal to Enter New York for the City attribute to retrieve all customers located in "New York". <> Not equal to Enter !=New York for the City attribute to retrieve all customers located outside of "New York". % Any value
Zero or more characters without limitationsEnter New% for the City attribute to retrieve all customers located in a city beginning with "New" (New York, New Orleans etc.). ! No value Specify ! for the City attribute to retrieve all customers for which city has not been specified. _ Any character Single character without limitations. Enter _e% for the City attribute to retrieve all customers located in a city with an "e" as the second character. > Larger than Enter >100 for the Customer ID attribute to retrieve all customers with an ID greater than "100". < Less than Enter <100 for the Customer ID attribute to retrieve all customers with an ID less than "100". >= Larger or equal to Enter >=100 for the Customer ID attribute to retrieve all customers with an ID greater than or equal to "100". <= Less or equal to Enter <=100 for the Customer ID attribute to retrieve all customers with an ID less than or equal to "100". + Checked Enter + in the Valid field to retrieve all customers for which the valid check box has been checked. - Unchecked Enter - in the Valid field to retrieve all customers for which the valid check box has not been checked. .. Between If you want to include values 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, the condition would be 5..10. ; Or Specify New York; Philadelphia for the City attribute to retrieve all customers located either in "New York" or "Philadelphia". Table 01: Special Search Symbols
You can also see the different conditions by clicking the drop-down arrow on the search field.
Figure 6. Search conditions are available via the drop-down list in the search field
The search also offers Context Substitution Variables and Query Macros to be used as reusable variables. Read more on Context Substitution Variables and Query Macros here.
Figure 7. Example of a combination of search fields. This will search for orders on site 1 where status is "Planned", order type is "NO", coordinator starts with A, wanted delivery date is between 2013-09-09 and 2013-09-13 and the Total Gross Amount is larger than 100000.
Once you have entered your search conditions you have the following options:
- Search. Starts the search. The search dialog will be closed and the search result will be presented in the page.
- Count Hits: Counts how many objects that will be retrieved with your search conditions. After the count, you are asked if you wish to copy the objects to the page. If you answer Yes, the Search dialog box is closed and the search is performed. Answering No takes you back to the Search dialog.
- Cancel. Closes the search dialog without performing the search.
- Match Case: Check this check box to retrieve objects with characters in upper/lower case exactly as specified in the search dialog. If you clear this check box, you do not have to specify what characters should be in upper or lower case.
- Clear. Clears your search conditions.
- Save. Saves the search conditions, read more about Saved Searches.
- Configure. Opens the Configure dialog, read more about Configure Search dialog.
- Advanced. Click this button to switch to the advanced search mode, read more in Advanced Search.
- Sort by: In the drop-down list you can select which field to sort on. If you want more advanced sorting read more in Advanced Search.
The Keyword Search provides the possibility to search by using free text search with keywords, e.g. supplier id, customer id, invoice number etc..
The Keyword Search field is placed at the top of the standard Search dialog and at the bottom of the Advanced search dialog. It's only available in IFS Application pages related to an index location. The index locations are usually configured by the System Administrator, read about configuration of Index Locations in the Technical Documentation.
When using Keyword Search you simply make a free text search, similar to what you would do in Google and the same as in Enterprise Application Search.
Example: In pages related to customer orders you may search for keywords such as Order No, Customer No, Customer Name, Customer PO No. etc. without having to use the specific search fields in the search dialog.
Figure 8. Keyword Search field in standard Search dialog.
Figure 9. Keyword Search field in advanced Search dialog
In the Configure Search dialog you can define which search fields that you want to have visible in the search dialog for a specific IFS Application page. The settings are personal and stored in your user profile.
Click the Configure button to open the Configure Search dialog.
Figure 10. Configure dialog.
The dialog consists of two parts: On the left hand side there is a list of all available search fields and on the right hand side there is a list of the fields you have selected to display. You highlight a field on the left hand side and click Add button to add it to the list. You may change the order the fields are presented in via the Up and Down buttons.
You can remove fields from the list on the right hand side by highlighting it and clicking the Remove button.
In the dialog you can also define search options:
Click OK button to save the configuration.
Via Advanced search you can make more complex searches, use the group and sum options, sort the search result on several fields and specify your own SQL statements.
Click the Advanced button to open the Advanced search dialog, it contains two tabs, Advanced and SQL.
In the Advanced tab the search fields are presented in columns, see below,
means that the field is
indexed and it has a positive impact on performance searching on this field.
Red arrow 
means that
searching on this field might have a negative impact on performance, e.g. it might
take longer to retrieve the search result. No arrow means that the is no
performance impact using that field. Note: The "Search Hints"
information is only predicting
a short/long response time. There are many additional factors that impact the response time, for example,
number of users accessing the same
database at the moment, the amount of stored data in the view (data source)
being queried etc.
Figure 11. Example of group and sum conditions.
Figure 12. Example of result of group and sum conditions used in Figure 11. Customer orders are grouped by Site and Status and Total Gross Amt is summarized
For advanced users who are familiar with SQL and the data model for IFS Applications there is
an advanced search option for entering any valid SQL Where and Order by statement in the
SQL
tab.
A quick way to start writing an advanced search is to enter a "normal" search, then
click Advanced button and open the SQL tab. The conditions entered in the normal search are then transferred to the advanced query.
The SQL tab has three parts:
Figure 13: SQL tab of the Search Dialog
It is very convenient to save the searches you often use. The saved searches you create are personal and stored in your user profile. This is how you create a Saved search:
Figure 14. Saved Search dialog
There are several options to reach your saved searches:
Figure 15: Saved search on breadcrumbs
Figure 16: Saved search on Navigator
Figure 17: Saved Searches on Page toolbar
Figure 18: My Administration/Saved Searches Context Menu
The following options area available in the context menu in My Administration/Saves Searches
It is possible to share your saved searches with other users. A shared saved search creates a task in the receivers to-do list which makes it easy to use.
You share a Saved search via the Share button in the Search dialog or via option Share in the context menu in My Administration/Saved Searches. This will open the Send to colleague dialog. Enter receiver of the task, one or several users, and a message and click Send button.
The receiver of the task will find it in his/her Task panel. When opening the task the search conditions will be displayed and the receiver can save the search in his/her user profile. Read more about Tasks.
Figure 19. Share Saved Search button and Send to Colleague dialog
Advanced query parameters are useful when you want to perform search on a particular field, for different values at different times. This is achieved by entering a Query Parameter (a value indicator starting with "&") in the field you want to give different values for. As a result, at every search, the Advanced Query Parameter window opens, where you can enter values for the particular Query Parameters.
Example: In this example we want to use Advanced Query Parameter for customer id, it's defined by using the "&" followed by the name "CUSTOMERNUMBER".
Figure 20: Example Advanced Query Parameters
Click the Search or Count Hints button and the dialog below will be displayed where you enter the actual customer id you want to search for. click OK and the search will be performed and the search result will be presented.
Figure 21: Advanced Query Parameters dialog
Guidelines for using Advanced Query Parameters
Example: The following search conditions (on Customer No) will produce the given search.
Search condition Entered Value for "CUSTOMERNUMBER" Resulting Search Condition "&CUSTOMERNUMBER" 1000 "1000" "&CUSTOMERNUMBER%" 1000 "1000%" "%&CUSTOMERNUMBER" 1000 "%1000" "%&CUSTOMERNUMBER%" 1000 "%1000%" ">=&CUSTOMERNUMBER" 1000 ">=1000" "2012-&MONTH%" 03 "2012-03%" Table 02: Advanced Query Parameters, Values and Resulting Search condition
Example: Giving value "1000%" for Advanced Query Parameter "CUSTOMERNUMBER" in search condition "&CUSTOMERNUMBER" will not search for all the values starting with "1000" as expected. It merely searches for any values exactly equal to "1000%".
Note. Advanced Search Parameters are quite useful when declared inside of a saved search. Clicking the Saved Search on the Navigator or Breadcrumb will open the Advanced Query Parameters window where you cam quickly enter the values.
