Searching in Document Vault
Search in Document Vault lets you find documents and other objects by entering keywords or by using advanced filters, conditions, and special characters. This article provides an overview of how to use the search engine in Document Vault.
Prerequisites
Users must have at least read-only access to the documents that will appear on the search results.
Quick Search
Document Vault lets you search by word or phrase, without the need to use additional filters. To search for a word, enter the word in the search box and press Enter or click the magnifying glass.
Use the down arrow to view the search history.
When you perform a search, Document Vault searches for the keywords in the following places:
- The object's name
- The object's metadata
- The document contents
Document Vault highlights the results.
Advanced Search
Use the Dial icon to the right of the magnifying glass to open the Advanced Search, in which you can tune your search, for example, searching for a particular string in the title only.
Note: See the M-Files documentation to use the boolean search.
Filters on the Right Tab
You can also use Search filters to narrow the search. Access Search filters by clicking the Filters on the right tab.
For example, narrow the search to find the content in the metadata or within the files, or only look for objects of type document and matter.
Dials
The Dials icon contains options to perform more complex search queries. To use the dials to narrow the search:
- Enter a keyword and click the dials.
- Select a property, the condition, and the value.
You can select several properties to narrow your search. The property, condition, and value dropdown menus show possible values to help you build the query.
For example, browsing the property dropdown menu lists all available options in alphabetical order:
If Author(s) is selected, then the Specify value dropdown menu lists the Suite users.
Additional Conditions
Click Dials > Additional Conditions to configure more advanced search options. The Additional Conditions pop-up contains four tabs, which are described in the following table:
| Tab name | Description | Image |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Refine the search further by creating specific commands to search for statuses in Document Vault. For example, a document that has been assigned to a user. |   |
| Properties | Refine the search further by creating specific commands to search for words o phrases within the objects in Document Vault. For example, a document that has an assignment description that contains a particular string. |   |
| Files | Refine the search by file characteristics. For example, file size or a date range when the file was created. |   |
| Permissions | Refine the search by group permissions. |   |
Note: Click Reset Conditions to clear the filters applied to Additional Search to avoid the next searches from being too narrow.
How Search Works
Document Vault searches for a word or term in the following places:
- The object's name
- The object’s metadata
- The document contents
Document Vault uses a search engine that looks for the word that you enter and for a family of related words, for example, drive, drove, driving, but not driver because that word has several meanings.
You can also use special characters. For example:
| Special Character | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Quotation marks "" | "Orion's belt" | The search results contain the phrase within the quotation marks. |
| Asterisk * | SEB* | This command translates to "look for strings that start with SEB". For example: - SEB01 - SEB001 - SEB02 |
| Question mark ? | ?pple | This command translates to "look for a character followed by string pple", for example, Apple or apple. Note that this command is for letters only. |
| Pound sign # | 201# | This command translates to "look for 201 followed by any number", for example, 2010, 2011, 2012. Note that this command is for numbers only. Use a pound sign per digit, for example: 20## finds 2000, 2008, 2010, etc. |
Note: For long query results, Document Vault displays the first 500 results.
For more information about search using special characters, see M-Files Operators and Special Characters.