City Document Search


Searching for Documents


These are the basic steps involved in searching for documents.

Identify what you are looking for

Before you can search for information, you must decide what type of information you are looking for. Think about what you want to find and its information or properties. This will help you choose how to search for an entry.

Select the appropriate search types

Select search types best suited for finding the information you want. You can search by one search type or combine different kinds of searches. When using the Search Pane to select multiple search types, only search results that satisfy all the search criteria for all displayed search types will be returned. When performing a Quick Search from the Welcome Page or the Folder Browser, results can satisfy some or all of your search criteria.

Note: The Quick Search can search text, entry names, fields, and/or annotations. You can configure Quick Search options by selecting Search Options under My WebLink. 


Example: If you are looking for all documents that deal with rocket science and have been updated since 2008, you can combine a search for that modification date with a full-text search for the phrase "rocket science." However, if you know all desired documents have a "Subject" field that stores this information, you can combine the modification date search with a field search instead.

We recommend using a field search instead of a full-text search when a field specifically deals with the information you are looking for, because a field search filters through a smaller set of words. If the field search doesn't return the right results, then perform a full-text search.

Tip: You can vary the search criteria to produce different search results: if too many search results are returned, refine your search criteria to be more specific; if not enough search results are returned, broaden your search criteria. 


Specify search criteria

Enter the information to search on for each type of search you're performing. Remember that full-text searches will only find documents that contain the exact phrase in the search field unless fuzzy search is enabled. Try to be as specific as possible, and try to match the language used by the type of document you are looking for.

Perform the search

Once you have specified what you are looking for, click Search to start searching.

View the desired search results

After performing a search, the results will be displayed in the Contents Pane. Because administrators have the ability to configure how the search results are displayed, you may see a combination of context hits, thumbnails, metadata, entry properties, and/or user-selected fields. A search result is viewed by clicking the specific entry name, context hit, or thumbnail.

 Note: By default, entry properties, user-selected fields, and context hits will be displayed in the search results, while thumbnails and metadata will be minimized.

 

Note: When performing a search using more than one search type at the same time, search results must meet all search criteria (unless you use the quick search). Most search types with no criteria specified (blank fields) will impact your search results, though some search types can be left blank without affecting other searches being performed, such as a full-text search. 


To search for documents and/or folders

  1. Use the search on the Welcome Page or in the Folder Browser to perform a text, entry name, field, and/or annotation search (depending on how the administrator configured this quick search). The results returned will satisfy some or all of these search criteria.
    Note: By default, wildcards are not included when you perform a quick search on the Welcome Page.
  2. To perform more specific searches, click Search under the WebLink site's logo at the top left of the page.
  3. Click Customize Search and select the search types you want add.
  4. To remove a search type click the red X next to the search type.
  5. Specify search criteria by entering the information you want to look for into your selected search categories.
  6. Press ENTER or click Search to perform the search.
Click Reset to go back to the Search Pane's default state.

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