Search String Tips and Tricks

Search String Tips and Tricks

Following are some tips and tricks for creating search strings:

To search text columns for a specific phrase:

  • Surround the phrase in quotation marks. For example, to search for professional services but not professional installation services, enter “professional services“.
  • Alternatively, to exclude specific words from the results, prefix the word with a minus sign (-). For example, to find all kinds of professional services except professional installation services, enter professional services -installation.

To search a text column for any of several words:

  • Simply enter all the words separated by spaces. Entering multiple words in a search box implies an OR between each word. You can also enter the OR explicitly. For example, to find items related to services or quotes, you can enter the search term services quote, which implies services OR quote.

To search a text column for *all* of several words:

  • Separate each word with AND (not case-sensitive) or the plus sign (+). For example, to search for quotes that are also renewals, enter quote AND renewal or quote+renewal.

All of the search tips above are also valid for the full text search field Search in all columns for.

When searching using date fields:

  • List Search Simple provides several operators in addition to Is Equal:
  • Use Is Before or Is After to match results on or before/after the specified date.
  • Use Is Between to match results between two dates, inclusive.
  • Use Is Near to match results within a specified number of days plus or minus the date, inclusive.
  • Match more than one value for Choice or Lookup columns (with an OR operator) by selecting each value in the drop-down list for the column.
  • Yes/No columns can be searched by selecting either Yes or No (or both) in an option drop-down list in the search form. If a list item has neither option selected, match it by clearing both selections in the search form. “Not selected” is not the same as “Yes” OR “No”.

See also: