Search & Browse

Searching and browsing is provided on most pages throughout Advantage. If no information is entered, all records are returned. There are several instances for pages with a large quantity of data where the user will be required to enter a minimum number of search fields and may be prohibited from searching with a wildcard (see below). The search functionality uses values entered in a set of fields presented directly on the page to perform a query. Here again, there may be pages that require certain fields for browsing or prohibit the use of wildcards.

The application supports the following features for finding records on a page and each of these can be combined:

Text can be typed in upper or lower case. All text will automatically be converted to upper case.

Type 1 complete value, name, date, description, etc. to search for a single record.
Using commas to separate, type more than one value, name, date, description, etc. to search for a group of records.
When searching for data than contains commas, enclose the search criteria with single quotes. For example, type 'Construction, Inc.', in the Vendor Legal Name search field to view the Construction, Inc. vendor record.
Wildcard searching is supported by the asterisk (*) symbol. For example, if 01* is entered, the system will return records 0100 to 0199 and any records that have letters or symbols after 01.
Upper and Lower Range searching is supported by the colon (:) symbol. For example, type 1/1/2008: 1/15/2008 in the Create Date field on the Transaction Catalog to view all transactions created on or after 1/1/2008 and on or before 1/15/2008.
Upper Range searching is supported by the greater than (>) symbol. For example, type >1/14/2008 in the Create Date field on the Transaction Catalog to view all transactions created after January 14, 2008. Adding the equal sign (>=) after the greater than symbol will result in transactions created on or after January 14, 2008.
Lower Range searching is supported by the less than (<) symbol. For example, type <1/14/2008 in the Create Date field on the Transaction Catalog to view all transactions created before January 14, 2008. Adding the equal sign (<=) after the less than symbol will result in transactions created on or before January 14, 2008.

The Advantage 4 application supports the following date formats, such as:

Single digits, double digits in month and day, and single, double, and triple digits in year (for example, MMDDYYYY, MMDDYY, MM-DD-YYYY, M/DD/YYYY, MM/D/YYYY, M-DD-YYYY, M/D/YY, and so forth) across all pages in the application.
The system successfully performs the range format search operations like the use of greater than >, less than <, greater than or equal to >=, and less than or equal to <=, along with the supported date formats.
Note: In certain cases, where the user provides single-digit values (M/D/Y or M/D/YY formats) without the separators (- or /), that can have multiple possibilities of date inputs to fetch. In such cases, the application displays a system feedback message to correct the entered format. For example, if the user manually enters the value as 1120 in the date field, this value can be interpreted as 01/01/20 or 11/2/0 or 1/12/0. Since this cannot be narrowed down by the system to interpret the user's intention, the system provides the error message and the user has to re-enter a valid input. Alternatively, the user can input the same value with separators (- or /), which returns search results with the given date successfully.

With each successive search, the system saves the criteria and displays it as a search card in the Recent Searches section of the page. A single click of the search card will initiate the search again. The search card displays only a limited amount of search criteria, but all the criteria can be viewed with the more information icon. The maximum number of search cards that can be displayed is controlled by site specific settings for the maxRecentSearchCardCount property for the recentSearch parameter in the feature.conf file. If the limit has been reached and a new search is initiated, then the oldest search card is removed and a new search card is added for the newly entered search criteria. Searches can be saved by clicking the pin icon and the search card will not be removed after the limit has been reached. The maximum number of search cards that can be pinned is controlled by the maxRecentSearchPinnedCardCount property for the recentSearch parameter in the feature.conf file. Note: The search cards for a page will only be displayed if the page is configured by the system administrator to open with the Query setting for Initial Mode.