Searching Issues

Issuetrak provides two quick ways to search issues in your site:

• The Quick Search box in the top right corner of the screen.
• The Search Issues link in the left menu for more detailed searches.

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Quick Search

The Quick Search is the field in the upper right area of every page in the product. It allows you to look up an issue by its issue number or by subject.

• If an issue number is entered, then pressing enter will navigate you directly to the issue, if it exists.
  • When a Quick Search is performed with a numeric value, the site will first search for that issue number.
  • If no issue is found with that number, Issuetrak will search for any issues that have that number in the Subject.
• If a Subject is entered, then pressing enter will take you directly to a Search Results screen, regardless of whether there are matches to the search results.
  • A specific search consisting of multiple words can be enclosed with double quotes to get an exact match.

    Example:

    If you know that an issue contains the phrase Server not responding, you can search for the full phrase enclosed in double quotes: "Server not responding"

  • A percent sign can be used between words to provide wildcarded search results in the event that certain terms between the words are unknown.

    Example:

    If you know that a sentence in an issue starts with For and ends in tables, you can enter your search term as For%tables to find that issue.

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Search Issues

To search for an issue or to save the search criteria you use frequently:

1. Select Search Issues from the left menu. This will open the Search Issues screen.

2. Enter / Select the criteria to search on from the options that appear.
   • To search on multiple words or character groupings in a text-based field, use a space or semi-colon (;) between the terms. Any Issues containing one or more of these terms will be returned.

     • If it is desired to search for exact matches (including spaces, commas, and semi-colons), enter double-quotes (") around your list.

     • To exclude Issues containing a specific term, enter a minus or dash (-) in front of the term.

       Examples:

       error;46328 will return any Issues with the terms error and 46328, as well as just error, or just 46328.
       
       "error 46328" will return only Issues with the exact term error 46328.
       
       error -"46328" will return only Issues with the term error but not the term 46328.

3. To include the issue User Defined Fields (UDF) within your search, click the + add user defined field to search criteria link, select the appropriate UDF value from the dropdown, then click add to search.
   • If you add a text UDF, you'll notice that there is an Exact Match toggle next to it. By default, this is off. Toggle it to search for only text that exactly matches what you're searching for.
   • If you're an administrator and would like to include specific UDFs on this Search Issues screen by default for all users, have a look here for more information.
4. Select the format for your search results as the Output. All outputs will display on the screen when the search is executed except:
   1. Brief Output to Excel
   2. Detail Output to Excel
   3. Brief Output to CSV
   4. Detail Output to CSV
5. You may execute this search immediately by clicking on Search. If you selected any of the Excel or CSV outputs, you will receive a prompt to open or save the resulting file. If you did not select Excel or CSV outputs, then the Search Results screen will allow you to export your results, if desired.
   • Alternatively, you can turn this into a Saved Search.

From the search results, you may click on an Issue Subject to open the View Issue screen and access any options available to you within the issue.

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Advanced Search Usage

There are various operators / modifiers that you can apply to your search criteria to achieve specific results. That is, by inserting specific characters in your search terms, you can specify whether you want matches within words, or that contain certain numbers, or that exclude certain characters. We'll explain what these characters are and what they do in the table below:

Symbol	Description	Example
%	Represents zero or more characters	bl% finds bl, black, and blue
_	Represents a single character	h_t finds hot, hat, and hit
[]	Represents any single character within the brackets	h[oa]t finds hot and hat, but NOT hit
^	Represents any character NOT in the brackets	h[^oa]t finds hit, but NOT hot and hat
-	Represents any single character within the specified range in the brackets	c[a-c] finds cat, cbt, and cct, but not cdt

Additional notes:

• The ^ character is only treated as a special character if it's inside brackets.
• The - (dash) character is treated specially by Issuetrak. Starting a search with - followed by text searches for results not containing that text.
• If the %, _, or [ characters are needed in the actual search, then they must be surrounded with brackets, like so: [%], [_], [[].
• If the - (dash) character is needed in the beginning of the search, it must be surrounded with brackets, like so: [-]
• The ] character can be used normally in search text since it only has special meaning when combined with a [ character.
• The ^ can be used normally in search text since it only has special meaning when used inside brackets.
• To search for the text [ytdsgPh87], enter [[]ytdsgPh87] in the search field. Searching for the text [ytdsgPh87] would search for issues that have a 'y', or a 't', or a 'd', etc.

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