Search String – Enter one or more words (eg ‘MIXING BOWL’, ‘INDUSTRIAL PLUMBING’ etc, a date (eg 2/5, 1/12/16 etc), or a transaction number (eg 1234 for invoice 001234 or POS Transaction 00001234 etc) into the Search String box.

If your are searching for a BBS transaction by the BBS transaction number (eg. invoice number, sales order number, purchase order number etc), you are NOT required to enter leading zeros as BBS will automatically add these in the background before performing the search (eg entering 1234 will search for invoice number 001234, POS Transaction 00001234, purchase order 001234 etc).

If the term entered appears to be a date, the system will prompt users to confirm they wanted to search for a date. PLEASE NOTE that to search for a date, a minimum of the day and month are required, and users must use the / character as the divider (eg 2/5, 2/5/16 etc).

Search Types – There are four different search types to choose from, and then several other options to vary the results of the search. To understand the difference between the four search types, and when to use each option, you must first understand the difference between the database search methods – index searches and keyword searches.

•Index searches – An index search searches certain fields in a data table (eg. Invoice Number, Customer Name, Customer Order Number, Invoice Date etc) and returns results where the search term entered matches the entire contents of the field or the beginning of the field. For example, an index search for ‘PLUMBING’ will return the customer with the name ‘PLUMBING INDUSTRIES’ but not the customer ‘INDUSTRIAL PLUMBING’ as PLUMBING is not at the start of the customer name.

•Keyword/Full Text Searches – Keyword searches read all fields in a data table and return results where the search term entered appears anywhere within the record. For example, a keyword search for ‘PLUMBING’ will return both the customers ‘PLUMBING INDUSTRIES’ and ‘INDUSTRIAL PLUMBING’.

Index searches are usually significantly faster than keyword searches, and are less likely to return false results. For example, searching for ‘1234’ in indexes will likely return transactions with the reference number of 1234 (eg invoice 001234, sales order 001234 etc), however a keyword search for the same term may also return results where ‘1234’ appears within another item such as a barcode (eg 940123456871) or telephone number (03 9001 1234).

The four Search Types available in the Instant Global Search are:

•Smart Search - The smart search performs a keyword search of the main masterfiles (customer, vendor, product and employee), returning results that contain all search terms (‘MIXING BOWL’ will return results that contain both ‘MIXING’ and ‘BOWL’ anywhere in the record) and also performs an index search on all other masterfiles and transactions for the exact term users has entered (‘MIXING BOWL’ will search for exactly “MIXING(space)BOWL” at the start of an indexed field). This is the default option as it is most likely to return the results a user wants in the shortest amount of time.

•Index Search – Exact Match - This option performs index searches on specific fields in masterfiles and transactions for the exact term users has entered eg ‘MIXING BOWL’ will search for exactly “MIXING(space)BOWL” at the start of all indexed fields.

•Keyword Search – Exact Match - This option performs keyword searches on masterfiles and transactions for the exact term users has entered eg ‘MIXING BOWL’ will search for exactly “MIXING(space)BOWL”

•Keyword Search – All Words - This option performs keyword searches on masterfiles and transactions for each word that users has entered (eg ‘MIXING BOWL’ will return results that contain both ‘MIXING’ and ‘BOWL’ anywhere in the record)

Search Trans History – Defaulting to ‘Last 12 months’, this option allows users to vary the time period of transaction history that will be searched. This reduces the amount of time a search takes to run, and also reduces the load on the server performing the search.

NOTE: This option is ignored for searches by transaction reference number, and for date searches. For example, if this option is set to ‘Last 12 months’ entering an invoice number from 3 years ago will still return that invoice as a result and entering a date 2 years in the past will still return transactions for that date.

Search For – Defaulting to ‘Everything’, this option allows users to restrict their results to only a certain entity (eg. customer, product etc) or a certain transaction (eg. invoice, purchase order etc), resulting in a more targeted and faster search.

NOTE: This drop-down list will only contain entities and transactions for the modules that users running the search has access to. For example, users without access to the Purchasing module will not be able to search for purchase orders, nor will the ‘Everything’ option return purchase orders in the search results for users.

Max Results – Defaulting to ’50 per Search item’, this option reduces the number of results returned for each table or field searched. This reduces the number of results users has to scroll through if they enter very generic search terms. For example, searching for ‘CASH’ may return thousands of Cash Sale invoices, however with this option set to ’50 per Search Item’, only the 50 most recent invoices will be returned, then the 50 most recent Cash Sale sales orders and so on.