Performing a Quick Search

Performing a quick search can be as simple as entering text in the search box, and then clicking. The results include any file that has the search text in its file name or metadata. If you have full-text search enabled, a quick search also can find the search term in a file's contents.

Note: 

• Your firm can set full-text search as the default search method. Full-text searches return the most results, but require more time and processing resources than regular searches. You can override the firm default for this option in individual searches, as explained in step 1 below. For instructions on changing the firm-level selection, see Setting General Configuration Options for Document.
• If you have more than 2,000 search results, the system prompts you to narrow your search criteria.

To run a search, do the following:

1. Verify that full-text search is either turned on or off, depending on your needs.

The full-text search button is next to the Quick Search box. It has a blue background when full-text search is enabled and a gray background when full-text search is not enabled. Click the button to toggle full-text search on and off.

Notes: 

• Full-text searches can be very time-consuming. You should consider whether a full-text search is necessary before you run a Quick Search.
• You can perform "begins with" word searches. However, the "contains" operator will not work with word searches. Searches for other criteria (such as searches for client, filename, or other criteria) are not limited in this way.

• Full-text search does not work on files larger than 100 MB and these files will not appear in "Full-Text Search" results.

2. Enter the text to search for in the Quick Search box on Document Central.



3. Review the results on the Search Results tab in Document Central. If there are many results, you can use the controls at the bottom of the Search Results tab to page through the results.

You also can run more sophisticated quick searches by doing any of the following:

• Limit the search to a particular entity type or entity.

  Before entering your search term, select the entity type or entity in the navigation panel. A filter will be visible in the Search box. You can then enter your search term and continue with the search as normal.

  Note: You can delete the filter from the Search box at any time.

• Enter search filters manually.

  You can enter filters in the Search box. Filters should follow this format:

  <FilterPrefix>:<FilterValue>

  <FilterPrefix> is a filter name that is predefined in Document. There are more than a dozen filter prefixes available for Quick Search. The <FilterValue> is the text that the filter should look for. For example:

  

  This filter prefix...	Limits the search results to files...
  Office	Assigned to the office specified in the filter.
  BU	Assigned to the business unit specified in the filter.
  Client	Assigned to the client specified in the filter.
  ClientID	Assigned to the client ID specified in the filter.
  Staff	Assigned to the staff specified in the filter.
  Nonclient	Assigned to the non-client entity specified in the filter.
  Folder	Stored in the folder specified in the filter.
  Filename	With the file name specified in the filter.
  Class	Assigned to the class specified in the filter.
  Subclass	Assigned to the subclass specified in the filter.
  Doctype	Of the document type specified in the filter.
  Year	Assigned to the year specified in the filter.
  Published	That have been published to portal.
  Wordsearch	That contain the exact word specified in the filter. Variations on the word, or text that is included as part of another word, are not included. Example: If you create a search query that includes the filter wordsearch:tax, then the results will not include results that include tax as part of a longer word (such as "taxing" or "taxes"). Only results that have tax as its own word are included. Note: You can perform "begins with" word searches. However, the "contains" operator will not work with word searches. Metadata searches (such as searches for client, file name, or other criteria) are not limited in this way.

  If you include more than one filter in Quick Search, the search results only include files that meet all of the filters requirements. (This is the equivalent of creating an "And" condition in a Boolean query.) Quick Search cannot accommodate "Or" statements. If you need to create an "Or" statement in a search query, you should use the Advanced Search.

• Use wildcard characters in your search.

• You can substitute the asterisk (*) and question mark (?) wildcard characters for unknown text at the end of a search term. Document will find any results that include the known portions of the search string.

  • The asterisk can replace any number of characters, including no characters at all.

    Example: You cannot remember the complete name of a file that you are searching for, but you know it is an Excel file that has the word "Smith" at the beginning. When you enter Smith* as your search criteria, you might receive the following results:

    • Smithers-Harris Q2 Results.xls
    • Smith Jones Consulting.pdf
    • Smith.doc
  • The question mark replaces a single character, or no character at all.

    Example: If you search for tax??, the system will look for text that has exactly two characters after the word "tax." So, examples of the results that might be returned include the following:

    • taxes
    • taxed
    • tax11

Tip: Click Save Search if you want to perform this same search in the future. See Saving a Search for more information.