Searches and Reports
Searches and reports are run from the Search tab, which is open by default when you open AssetWise Director.
There are three types of searches you can run:
A quick search lets you search for an object based on a word or phrase contained in the object's properties. For example, you might run a quick search for all documents that have "DGN" in the document name.
An extended search lets you narrow the search for an object by entering additional search criteria. For example, you might run an extended search for all documents that have "DGN" in the document name, modified between certain dates, and with a particular approval status.
An interactive report (also referred to as an interactive search or a saved search) is a search that you define and save so that it can be run again later by you or other users. This is useful if you have a particular search (whether simple or complex) that you need to run over and over; rather than re-entering the same search criteria each time you want to run the search, you define the search criteria once, save the search, and then just run it when you need it. (In AssetWise Web, these searches are called user-defined reports.)
When you run a search, the results display in the lower portion of the Contents pane. You can allow each new search to overwrite the results of the previous search (if you leave the search results tab open), or you can choose to display the results of each new search in a new tab, so that you could actually have several search results tabs open at the same time in the Contents pane.
Each row in the search results represents an object that was found. From the search results you can:
- double-click any object in the search results to open that object in a new tab in the Content pane
- drag one or more objects from the search results into the appropriate topics, to create relationships
- right-click an object and perform various tasks on the object, including copying the results to the clipboard, exporting them to Excel, and printing them
You can sort the search results by clicking on the column header that contains the sort criterion (for example, Number). The initial sort always results in ascending order. If you click the column header again, the results are sorted in descending order.
The three pane control icons are Window Position, Auto Hide, and Close.
Clicking the Window Position (or right-clicking anywhere in the title bar) icon opens a pop-up menu as shown:
A Floating pane can be dragged anywhere, even outside the AssetWise Director desktop. A Dockable pane can be docked to any margin of the desktop (use the Dockable menu item.)
The Auto Hide icon causes the pane to collapse (auto-hide) to a nearby margin, but it is easily retrievable without rerunning search operations or reselecting an object.
To retrieve the pane, mouse-over the labeled area where the pane hid. The pane returns to its prior position on the screen. When the mouse is moved off the pane the information disappears from view. If you would like the pane to remain in view, click the Auto Hide icon once again. The pane will move to its previous location and size. When the Auto Hide shows as point-down, the pane is pinned, but when it is point-left the pane will auto-hide when the mouse is moved from the pane.
If you select Hide, the pane is not visible anymore. To retrieve the pane you will need to reselect the pane from the View menu item.