Aptify'sadvanced s advanced Find dialog (whichis which is the standard Finddialog Find dialog in Aptify 5.5 and earlier) allows a user to define multiplefiltersstatements multiple filters statements based on different fields within a service. When using the advanced Find dialog, the name of the service appears in the menu bar.
Follow the steps below to use Aptify's advanced Find Dialog:
- Open the Aptify Find dialog from the service in which you want to perform the search.
- The Aptify Find dialog can be launched using several methods within the Aptify system. See Opening the Aptify Find Dialog for a list of options.
- The Aptify Find dialog can be launched using several methods within the Aptify system. See Opening the Aptify Find Dialog for a list of options.
- By default, the basic search option is displayed, to access the advanced Find dialog, select the Search hyperlink to the left of the text field.
- Depending on how your administrator has configured the find options within your system, the advanced find dialog may appear automatically and this step may not be necessary.
- Depending on how your administrator has configured the find options within your system, the advanced find dialog may appear automatically and this step may not be necessary.
- The advanced Find dialog is displayed as shown in the figure.
- Enter one or more filter statements. See Defining the Advanced Find Dialog Filters for details.
- If you want to customize which fields appear in the search results, click the Fields tab and modify the field selections as necessary. See Defining the Advanced Find Dialog Fields for for details.
- Click the Find button.
- If there is only one record matching the specified criteria, that record opens. If you launched the Find dialog from the button on a form, the record populates the form you already have open. If you launched the Find dialog from a Link Box, the record appears in the Link Box's text field.
If there are multiple matching records, the dialog opens the Results tab and displays the search results.
Note Note that if you launched the Find dialog by double clicking a service in the Folder List or clicking a Find button in a toolbar, then the results will appear in a new view window.
Note Clicking the Find button in the Find dialog without entering any search criteria, generates a list of all the records in the specified service. Criteria should always be entered when working with services that contain more than just a few records. Otherwise, searches may be very slow and finding the record in a large result set may be difficult.
Administrators can prevent users from using the Find dialog without any search criteria by enabling the FindRequiresFilter attribute for a particular entity. See the Entities Administration
chapter in of the Aptify Administration Guide for more information.
- Double-click a record to open it. If the find results appear on the Results tab, in addition, you can highlight the record that you want to load and press the Select key.
- If you launched the Find dialog from the button on a form, the record you selected populates the form you already have open.
- If you launched the Find dialog from a Link Box, the record you selected appears in the Link Box's text field.
Defining Filters
Find search criteria defines the records to display when you click the Find button. The Filters tab in the Find dialog includes three columns (Field, Operator, and Value) for defining the search criteria. For example, if you launched the Find dialog from a Persons record, you can enter a search term to find all records whose FirstName field begins with the word, John.
Enter the search criteria and click Find to execute the search. You can define up to five filter statements. The Find dialog joins multiple filter statements with AND operators (a record must meet all of the specified criteria to appear in the Results list).
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Note that Aptify only searches for matching records in the service identified at the top of the dialog. |
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The Field column specifies the name of the search field.
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The Operator column defines the type of match. The choices of operators change based on the type of field selected.
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- Begins With: The value of a record's specified field must begin with the character or phrases identified in the search statement's Value.
- Exactly Matches: The value of a record's specified field must exactly match the search statement's Value.
- Ends With: The value of a record's specified field must end with the character or phrase identified in the search statement's Value.
- Contains: The value of a record's specified field must contain the character or phrase -identified in the search statement's Value.
The Find dialog offers the following search operators for a numeric field:
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The Sub-Type Find dialog offers the following search operators for a Yes/No bit field (note that you do not have to specifya Value for this field type, only the operator):
- Is True: Bit is set to 1.
- Is False: Bit is set to 0.
To define the operator for the search:
- Click the down arrow in the Operator column. A list of operators for the selected field displays.
- Select an operator using one of the twofollowing options:
- Click the desired operator.
- Use the down arrow to locate the desired operator, and press the Enter key.
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In the Value column, you can enter characters, a phrase, or a number that the Find dialog will use as the basis for the record search. The Value field uses the operator selected in the Operator column to determine the type of match. For example, to find all records in the service whose date is greater than January 1, 2005, you would enter 1/1/2005 as the Value.
You can either manually enter a value in the field or select a value from the drop-down list, if one is available. If you select a field that has a defined list of possible values in the Field column (such as a Person's State), the drop-down list displays these values.
Otherwise, the drop-down list may display the first 100 possible values for the specified field in the service. Note that these possible values are only a suggestion: Only the first 100 values appear in the list, even if the field contains more than 100 values. If the field contains less than 100 values, then all of the values appear in the list. In addition, the feature is designed for characterbased fields. It does not apply to fields with the following data types: text, ntext, varchar(max), nvarchar(max), datetime, or numeric.
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The feature that displays the first 100 possible values is disabled by default in Aptify but your administrator can enable it for the entire system or on a per-entity basis. See the setting the View/Find Suggested Value List Attributes sectionin the Entities Administration chapter of the Aptify Administration Guide for details. |
As soon as one character is entered in the Value column, the next Field column activates. Define additional search statements, as necessary.
Defining Fields
By default, the Results tab displays a list of fields for the matching records as determined by your administrator. However, you can modify which fields appear within the search resultsto help you identify the record to select.
Click the Fields tab within the Find dialog to display the list of available fields in the current service. The Show column is selected for the fields that will appear in the Results list. To remove a field from the Results tab, clear the field's Show option. To display the field in the Results tab, select a a field's Show option.
After selecting the fields to display, click the Find button to load or update the Results tab.
Note that for find operations initiated from a link box, the field value that will be displayed in the link box must be selected in the Find dialog's Fields list. For example, if populating a Ship To person on an order, the NameWCompanyfield must be displayed in the Find results in order to successfully load the selected person to the Ship To field (since the field displayed in the link box is the person's NameWCompany).
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