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Using Keyword Search, you can perform a search across all text fields on any of the main CRM entities (Case, Communication, Company, Lead, Opportunity, Order, Person, and Quote) by typing key terms in a search field. You can perform a keyword search directly from an entity Find page, or you can right-click the Find menu button and click Keyword Search to open the Keyword Search page. Keyword search is also available from all Advanced Search Select pages.
When you carry out a keyword search on, for example, Cases, the keyword is searched for not only in Cases, but also in entities associated with the case, for example, Companies, Persons, Addresses, and Progress Notes. When the keyword search is carried out from the Keyword Search page, you have the option to perform the keyword search across multiple entities at one time. For more technical information on keyword search views, please refer to "View Customization" in the System Administrator Guide.
The CRM keyword search function uses an "any words" search technique. An any words search returns records containing all of the words listed in a search term once those words appear in the record text fields or in the text fields of any associated entity record specified in the keyword search view. For example, a search for european software services returns all records containing the words european + software + services in any text field. These words can appear in any order within a record and across more than one text field. If the search term is not enclosed in quotation marks, matching records are picked up even where there are words inserted between the search term words within a record. If quotation marks are used, only records containing the exact phrase are returned.
You can further refine your keyword search by combining it with other criteria from the standard Find page. For example, you can perform a keyword search using the search term Murphy and refine this search by selecting Ireland from the Territory drop-down field on the Find Person page. This means that a person keyword search is carried out on the term “Murphy” but only those records that have a matching “Ireland” territory are returned in the search list.
Note: By further refining your keyword search using the standard entity find page you're refining the results brought back from CRM by the initial search based on the keyword(s) supplied. If you enter a value into the keyword search box and you enter or select a value from one of the standard search fields, then a keyword search is performed first of all based on the keyword search term supplied. Then, based on the keyword search results retrieved from CRM, these results are further filtered by the values entered or selected from the standard search fields such as the Territory drop-down list.
When performing a keyword search, it may sometimes be the case that you know part of the term you want to search on. For example, you may have part of a company name, or you know that you're looking for someone called either Smith or Smyth, or you might know only the first few digits of a telephone number. A variety of special characters can help you narrow your search results in such circumstances:
|
Character |
Usage |
|
* % |
A * or % can be placed at any position in a word and matches any number of characters. Both the * and % perform exactly the same action. For example, *ope* would match Europe, open, and so on. Note: You should take care to leave a space between words when using these characters with multi-word search terms. |
|
Quotation marks |
To search for a phrase, place it in quotation marks. For example, a search for "software services" will return all records containing the phrase software services. Punctuation marks are treated as blank space. So, for example, a search for "(1451)4579937" would search for two text strings, 1451 and 4579937. |
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? |
A ? can be placed at any position in a word and matches any single character. For example, Americ? would match America, but not American. However, you could use Americ?? to return all words containing Americ and two characters after it. |
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= |
A = can be placed at any position in a word and matches any single digit. For example, B== would match B12, but not B123. |
|
# |
The # must be placed at the start of a word and will return all words that start with the same letter and sound like the word you're searching for. For example, #smith will return smith, smithe, and smythe. Note: The # can sometimes be over-inclusive. For example, in the example above, it might also return words like smart, smoke, and smell. |
|
~~ |
The ~~ symbols allow you to search within a numeric range. To perform a numeric range search, you enter the upper and lower bounds of the range separated by ~~. For example, 10~~20 will return all numbers between 10 and 20. Note: Numeric range searches work with positive numbers only, and decimal points, and commas are treated as spaces, while minus signs are ignored. |
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+ - |
Place + in front of a word that is required in your search or - in front of a word that you want to exclude. For example, if you wanted to return all records containing the word software in association with the word services, you could use the search term software +services. However, if you wanted to return all instances of software except those that are associated with services you could use the search term software -services. |
See Searching Using Keyword Search for an example of how keyword search can be used to perform a search in CRM.
See Also:
Sage CRM user assistance PDFs
