Advanced Searches - And/Or, Not & Group

When searching for anything using more than one search criteria, there are additional considerations you need to take into account when creating a search.

Understanding And, Or & Not

And

The AND function is used to filter records based on more than one condition, like if you want to find all Design Requests for Arden Software UK

Type: Design Request And Customer: Arden Software UK

Adding additional criteria to your search will then continue to further refine the results.

Type: Design Request And Customer: Arden Software UK And Site: Marple

Or

The OR function is used to filter records based on more than one condition, like if you wanted to return all Design Requests but also any tasks for Arden Software UK.

Type: Design Request Or Customer: Arden Software UK

Not

The Not function is used to give the opposite result, such as if you want to find all tasks that are not Design Requests

Not Type: Design Request

Using the Same Filter More than Once

Cases where you want to use the same filter more than once can be problematic, such as "All tasks created for Arden Software UK and Arden Software North America". This might be how we would speak the search criteria but in doing so, the criteria we're specifying is actually "All tasks whose customer is both Arden Software UK and Arden Software North America". A task can't belong to both UK and North American customers.

Customer: Arden Software UK

Customer: Arden Software North America

Customer: Arden Software UK And Customer: Arden Software North America

This will give no results as a task can't belong to both UK and North American customers. The correct format is therefore:

Customer: Arden Software UK Or Customer: Arden Software North America

"All tasks whose customer is Arden Software UK or Arden Software North America"

Grouping Fields Together

Following our earlier examples, if we then add in an additional requirement of all Design Requests whose customer is Arden Software UK or Arden Software North America, we have a couple of possibilities. Do we want all Design Requests for Arden Software UK as well as tasks of any type for North America or do we only want Design Requests for both regions? We need some way of linking the first criteria of the "task type" to the second customer filter. We can do this by grouping the two customer criteria together.

Type: Design Request And ( Customer: Arden Software UK Or Customer: Arden Software North America )

Example Searches

My Approvals

If you want to see a list of all types of approval tasks that need to be reviewed by you, there are a number of ways of achieving this.

Search by Approval Task Types

The Task Type filter is a multi-select so you can simply choose all approval type tasks that you're interested in. The Status is also a multi-select so you can exclude all tasks that are completed or cancelled.

When it comes to selecting the assignee, there are multiple ways of achieving this. The 'relative user' options in square brackets apply to whomever is connected. While you're logged in, that would be tasks assigned to you or your user groups. If you share the saved search with a colleague, it applies to them and their user groups. You can just pick your own user name and specific user group. If your colleague was to then view that saved search, it would show them tasks assigned to you and your user groups, not theirs.

Type: Design Approval, Artwork Approval, Production Approval And Not Status: Completed, Cancelled And ( Assignee: [Connected User] Or Assignee: [Connected User's Groups] )

Search by Approval Outcome

A more efficient way of doing the same thing is to use the Approval Outcome instead of the Task Type. Because you're searching for tasks with an approval outcome, it will automatically exclude all tasks that aren't of an approval type. An Approval Outcome of Pending is all tasks that have not been approved or rejected. This also means it will automatically include any future approval type tasks. As the tasks are Pending, it also means they've not been completed so we don't need to include the Status filter. The third 'relative user' option includes the user and any user group they belong to. This gives us a much simpler search of:

Approval Outcome: Pending And Assignee: [Connected User or Their Groups]

Open Tasks I've Requested

A common request for salespeople is to be able to see all tasks they've requested. If this isn't filtered further, it becomes a very long list of everything they've ever requested. An additional search criteria of Task Status and either listing all of the status they're interested in, or as in the following case, just the two they're not interested in, will give them a clearer picture of everything they're requested that hasn't yet been completed.

It can also be useful to see any tasks that have only just been closed. Combining both of these criteria together will give a search of:

Requested By: [Connected User] And Not Status: Cancelled, Completed Or ( Requested By: [Connected User] And Date Completed: Within the previous n days.. 2 )

Customers Viewable Designs

WEBcnx can be configured to only permit customer users to view designs of a given status, such as active or approved. If you have permissions to view all designs for all customers, of any status, how can you verify they're seeing what you want them to see? You can log in as them if you have permissions to do this. Alternatively, you can create an advanced search that uses a group for each of the statuses that you want them to view. 

Customer: Arden Software UK And ( Status: Active Or Status: Approved Or Status: Pending )

Combining Groups

Taking the above example "Customers Viewable Designs", this can have any number of additional criteria added to further filter the results. The following adds sites filters for the two specified sites.

Customer: Arden Software UK And ( Status: Active Or Status: Approved Or Status: Pending ) And ( Site: Marple Or Site: Park City )

Further Reading

• Project & Layer Status