Search operators

You can use search operators when performing a search. A search operator is a sign or a word that expands your search options. You should write the search operators with your search criteria.

Note:

  • For Date and DateTime fields, you can enter values such as +1d or -1w to adjust the date fields by the number of years, quarters, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes or even seconds. See Shortcut keys for more information.

  • Searches work differently in text fields and in free text fields.


Search using text fields

Not all search operators can be used across all search pages and fields. See how you can use the search operators below.

Operator Name Description

*

Wildcard (asterisk)

Replaces one or more characters.

^

Hat (Circumflex)

Removes the distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters.

|

Or

Searches for individual elements where one or more of the entered words appear.

&

And

Searches for individual elements where all the entered words appear.

To search for the character &, not as an operator, but, for example, as part of the name of a contact, you must insert a backslash before the character, that is, \&.


Search using free text fields

Not all operators can be used on all search pages and fields. See how you can use the search operators below.

Operator Name Description

*

Wildcard (asterisk)

Replaces one or more characters.

Wildcard searches will vary, depending on whether you have selected Normal search or Extended search.

  • Normal search: The wildcard (*) at the beginning of the search term will be ignored. Wildcard characters in the middle or at the end of the search term will be processed. This is the default search setting.

  • Extended search: All wildcards in the search term will be processed.

Using searches, for example *sun and *sun* is not recommended for free text searches as all WorkZone elements are traversed for all full and partial occurrences of the search term. This type of search can produce a large number of results, consume noticeable system resources and take significantly longer to display the search results.

?

Question mark

Replaces exactly one character.

|,

OR

Or

Searches for individual elements where one or more of the entered words appear.

For free text searches for documents, the search is performed in the meta data fields and in the document itself.

&,

AND

And

Searches for individual elements where all the entered words appear.

To search for the character & not as an operator, but, for example, as part of the name of a contact, you must insert a backslash before the character, that is, \&.

~,

NOT

Not

Searches for items where the words you enter after the operator do not occur.

You should always search for an item that contains "<word_to_find> NOT <word_to_find_not>". Searching for NOT deposits will produce no result.

+

Fuzzy search

Utilizes Oracle Fuzzy Matching to search for similarly spelled words that only diverge marginally from the searched terms. The level of sensitivity to divergence can be defined in your Oracle database to enable more or less results.

The default parameters of Oracle's Fuzzy Matching (similarity score lower limit and maximum number of expanded terms) can be changed by a system or database administrator in your Oracle database to increase or decrease the number of search results. This change must be made at index time.

See Also

Fuzzy Matching and Stemming (external link to Oracle documentation site)

Oracle Text Indexing Elements (external link to Oracle documentation site)

"", ''

Quotation marks

Search words or phrase encased in single or double quotation marks will be looked up as an exact string (that is, written in exactly the same order and form).