Search tips and techniques
You can use special characters, formatting techniques and keywords when performing a text-based search for projects, companies and documents. You can use both a simple keyword search and a more advanced search with keywords, wild cards, special operators, and special characters.
Note: For a full list of search rules and tips, click the attachment below:
This section contains the following topics:
- 1 Using basic search techniques
- 2 Using exact phrasing, wildcards and special characters
- 3 Using the operators AND, NOT, NEAR and parentheses
- 3.1 Using AND
- 3.2 Using NOT
- 3.3 Using NEAR
- 3.4 Using ( ) parentheses
- 4 Searching specific project field values
- 5 Fields on the project list page that are included in a search
- 6 Stop words used in searches
Using basic search techniques
This section describes how you can use basic search techniques for broadly defined results.
Search parameter | Results |
Using NEAR | Words that are up to 25 words of each other. Example: Searching "concrete NEAR steel" returns documents with the two words up to 25 words of each other. Note: For maximum performance, the NEAR operator can only be used 50 times within a single search. |
Omitting commas | You can generally omit the comma in project and company names:"Johnson Johnson and Sons" |
Multiple word document search | When searching for multiple words in a document search, the documents returned contain all the words on the same page but not individually on separate pages. Example: Searching "reinforce steel concrete" returns documents with the three words on the same page. Pages where the words appear either individually or in a pair are not returned. |
Auto-correct for common search errors | The auto-correct feature generally corrects the most common search errors: |
Using exact phrasing, wildcards and special characters
You do not need to use wildcards to find words with the common stems ed, ing, and s. Words with these stems are automatically included in your results. For example, searching landscape returns that word along with landscaping,landscaped, and landscapes.
Wildcards within quotation marks are ignored and not supported for either single words or phrases. Using "concrete* tile" behaves the same as using quotation marks alone, as described below for using an asterisk wildcard.
NOTE: You must include 3 or more characters before the asterisk wildcard for the search to return results.
The following table describes how you can use exact phrasing, wildcards, and special characters in your searches.
Using the operators AND, NOT, NEAR and parentheses
You can use the operators AND, NOT, NEAR and parentheses to logically include or exclude words/phrases in your searches to better qualify your results. Note that you must capitalize AND, NOT and NEAR.
Notes:
For maximum performance, the NEAR operator can only be used 50 times within a single search.
When searching for projects and companies, operators must be used in combination with terms you expect to find in the project or company listing. Using an operator as the sole keyword returns no results. For example, search using concrete AND tile. The following is a complete list of operators:
a an and are as at be but by for if in into is it no not of on or such that the their then there these they this to was will with
NOTE: Operators must have at least one search term in between 2 operators for the search to return results.
Correct format: concrete AND tile NEAR architectural
Incorrect format: concrete AND NEAR architectural
Using AND
Each additional filter you add to your search criteria acts as an AND condition in your search. For example, searching "landscape: Scope & Details" and "excavation: Documents" returns projects with landscape or landscape in the Scope & Details section and also returns projects with excavation in the project documents.Using AND
You can also manually add AND to your search terms to return documents containing both of the phrases you specify, as described in the following table.
Search parameter | Results |
Use AND to search two or more words: concrete AND tile | Returns both concrete and tile. |
Use AND along with quotation marks to search phrases and words: "reinforced concrete" AND tile | Returns both the phrase reinforced concrete and the word tile. |
Using NOT
The following table describes how you can use NOT to exclude documents containing the specified word or phrase.
Search parameter | Results |
Use NOT to exclude a term from the search results: concrete NOT tile | Returns concrete but not tile. |
Use NOT along with quotation marks to search for phrases and exclude a term from the search results: "reinforced concrete" NOT tile | Returns reinforced concrete but not tile. |
Using NEAR
You can use the operator NEAR to locate words within a specific number of words from one another.
Note: For maximum performance, the NEAR operator can only be used 50 times within a single search.
The following table describes how you can use the operator NEAR:
Search parameter | Results |
Use NEAR to find words within the default range of 25 words of each other: concrete NEAR tile | Returns concrete within 25 words before or after the word tile. |
Specify the distance of words from one another when using NEAR: concrete NEAR51 tile | Returns concrete within 51 words before or after the word tile. |
Use NEAR multiple times to find more than one word within other words. (reinforced NEAR concrete) OR (architectural NEAR concrete) | Returns reinforced or architectural within 25 words before or after the wordconcrete. |
Using ( ) parentheses
You can use parentheses to combine multiple words, phrases, and operators to form very specific search criteria. Expressions are evaluated according to standard algebraic logic: inner-most parenthetical expressions are evaluated first and then resolved left to right.
The following table describes how you can use parentheses in your search.
Searching specific project field values
You can search the field values in a project listing using the formats described in the following table.
Important!: The filters below are case sensitive. Be sure to copy or enter them exactly as they appear below.
Invalid special characters
The following is a partial list of special characters that are invalid and not supported when used for searching in Leads.
Fields on the project list page that are included in a search
The following table contains the name and index status of the fields on the project list page that are included in a search.
Stop words used in searches
Stop words are terms that are removed from your search criteria when searching in specific categories. For example, when searching by company for the name "Company and Company", the and is removed. However, some categories do consider stop words as part of the search criteria:
Stop words are considered as part of the search criteria in the following categories:
Projects
Projects/Personal Notes
Companies/Personal Notes
Documents
Documents/Plans
Documents/Specs
Stop words are not considered and are removed from search terms in the following categories:
Projects/Title
Projects/Scope & Details
Projects/City
Projects/Postal Code/Zip Code
Companies
The following is a full list of the stop words that apply to searches in Intelligent Leads: | |
a | of |
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