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Enter "FIND" mode by clicking the "View" command on the menu bar and then "Find"
OR by using the Mode button in the lower left side of the screen
OR by clicking on Ctrl-F.
You will now see a blank screen. Enter any criteria into one or more fields. When you are done, click on the "Find" button in the gray status area on the left. (If a button or script brought you into Find mode, you may need to click on a "Continue" button rather than a "Find" button.)
To Create Find Requests:
Suppose that you have 20 employers in your database, with 10 from Holyoke. Suppose that you want to find all the employers in Holyoke. Go into Find mode, type the word Holyoke in the city field, and click Find. Look at the status area on your left and you will see that there are 20 records, and that there are 10 in the currently found set. Use the book to scroll through the data and you'll see these 10 employers. You can also type part of the word, such as Holy and get the same results. But if you type Hol you will get employers in Holyoke, Holliston, Holden and Holbrook.
To find an exact match, start your entry with two equal signs. While typing Springfield will find schools in Springfield and West Springfield, typing == Springfield will only find schools in Springfield.
To exactly match a word, start your entry with one equal sign. While typing Jo in a first name field will find people named Jo, Bobby Jo, Joe, and Josephina, typing =Jo will only find people named Jo or Bobby Jo.
To find an empty field, type an equal sign in the field. For example, if you put an equal sign in a phone number field, you'll find all records that don't have a phone number.
To find fields that do have text, put an asterisk in the field. For example, if you put an asterisk in the website field, you'll find all the records for which you have website addresses.
To search within a date range or numeric range, use three dots (...). For example, enter 7/1/1999...8/31/1999 in a Start Date field to find activities that started in the summer of 1999.
To search for fields with duplicate values, put an exclamation point in the field. For example, to find duplicate employer names, put ! in the employer name field.
Click on the "Symbols" button when you are in Find mode to see more symbols.
For a find that involves an "or" statement, you should enter the first criteria, then use the menu to click on "Request" then "Add New Request" and then enter the next criteria. For example, to find schools in Holyoke or Chicopee, enter Find mode, type Holyoke in the city field, click Request, Add New Request, then type Chicopee in the city field, and then click on "Find."
For a find that involves an "and" statement, enter all the criteria on a single screen. For example, if you are searching for charter schools in Boston, put Boston in the city field and enter Public (Charter) in the Type field.
The "Omit" checkbox allows you to omit records according to the criteria you specify. For example, if you enter Chicopee in the city field and check "Omit", you'll find schools everywhere but Chicopee.
Some fields are protected from data entry (in order to protect them from accidental input). If you run into trouble entering data in a field when you are in Find mode, try other layouts to see if the field is unprotected in a different layout.
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Key points about Find mode
* Most Finds can be performed on any layout that contains the field(s) you are interested in. You can also use two different layouts to create your find criteria.
* After you do a Find you can switch to another layout to see the data displayed the way you want, such as lists, labels, etc. The same set of records will still be in the found set. For example, you might use one layout to find all the supervisors in the Horizons program and then go to the fax cover sheet layout to write and print a fax cover sheet for everyone.
* After you do a Find, you can click Records, Show Omitted or Records, Show All Records on the menu bar to see the omitted records or to see all the records again.
* The symbols used in Finds (such as ...,!,=,*,//, etc.) are found in a popup menu in the gray status area when you enter Find mode. You can type the symbols from the keyboard or use this popup menu to select the symbol you want.
* If you do a Find and make a mistake or don't get the results you want, you can click Records, Modify Last Find on the menu bar to go back into Find mode, and see your last Find criteria. Then you can modify it and try again.
* Find mode is useful for editing and cleaning data. You should occasionally run the script called "Check records before running Connecting Activities Report" to spot potential errors. This script will write a set of messages, such as "this record is coded as Paid but the wage is zero." After you've read your messages, you may want to use Find mode to find all the records with a particular problem or issue so that you can correct them. |