Search and Filters

You can use search and filters to find business entities that you need to work with.

There are three main search types:

• Search using filter lists (CTRL+F)
• Context-specific search (CTRL+G)
• Manual Search

Use filter list searches to narrow down a list of business entities. In the "top" filters of many workspaces, for example, a filter list search is used to select exactly one business entity work with: one customer, one job, and so forth.

Use context-specific searches to find business entities that are somehow associated with the entity you are working with. For example, if you are working with a job, you can use a context- specific search to find an employee that can be the project manager. If you are working with a time sheet, you can use a context-specific search to add a task to that time sheet.

Use manual search to filter results and avoid performance-heavy searches. For example, if you know the specific filter criteria you would like to use for a search, you can manually choose that criteria to narrow down the search results without negatively impacting performance.

Search Using Filter Lists

Filter lists are used in many workspaces as a "top filter." This is the case in those workspaces that work with one business entity at a time.

An example is the Jobs workspace: in this workspace you have to select a Job to work with before you can do anything else. The filter list lets you do that. When you see the job that you want to work with in the list, you double-click it to start working with the job.

The filter list is minimized automatically when you select something in the list. You find a business entity by searching in the top filter that is "in front" of the workspace, so to speak. In most cases, however, you do not really "search" in a traditional sense at all:

• Predefined filter are can be set up to give one-click access to a filtered list. Examples could be My Open Jobs or All My Jobs.
• The top filter of a workspace can be set to open with a predefined filter. For example, the Jobs workspace could always open with the My Open Jobs filter already applied.

If the list is too long to be easily scanned, you can apply more filters by searching-as-you-type. This means that when you start typing in the top row of the filter list (the filter row), the text you enter is applied as a search in that column immediately.

If, for example, you start typing "maco" in the Job Name field in the filter row, Jobs with names such "Deltek Maconomy" as well as "pharmaco" are retrieved: wild cards are implied. The search is performed each time there is a brief pause in your typing.

You can sort the "search table" on any column by clicking the header of that column. The first time you click on a new column header, the column will be sorted by ascending values, and a second click will reverse the sort (to descending values.)

You can also customize what columns are shown in this way by right-click in somewhere in the column header row. You can now do two things:

• Hide the current column
• Open the Customize columns dialog

In the Customize columns dialog you can select and deselect columns ("fields") to show, and you can decide what order to show them in. And there is a simple link that will reset everything to the defaults.

There are keyboard shortcuts available for working with filter lists.

Work with a Filter List

When you select a business entity to work from a filter list by double-clicking, the filter list is automatically compacted (or minimized.)

This means that only one row is shown from the list. The list is fully functional while it is compacted, and you can switch from one element in the element in the list to another in two ways:

• Use the arrow keys that are next to the drop-down. This moves one element back and forward in the list, respectively.
• Use the drop-down list to select a specific element.

The contents of the compacted filter list are the same as they were in the expanded list when it was compacted. If you used a filter (for example, a predefined one such as My Jobs), the jobs that you can cycle through with the arrows or select from the drop-down list are "My Jobs." In order to see more jobs or different jobs in the compacted filter list, you must expand the list and set a new filter.