ProjectWise Explorer lets you build highly complex searches without any detailed knowledge of SQL (Structured Query Language). However, it is essential to understand some basic guidelines on how to build comparisons to ensure that the results of your searches are those which you originally intended.

The first guideline when creating complex searches is that you can only compare like with like. For example, text must be compared with text, numbers with numbers, dates with dates, and so on.

Some of the fields which you will use to make comparisons have lists, which eases the choice of comparison. These lists show you the existing entries for the field in the database so, for example, if you wanted to find a particular component class, the lists would offer you the list of all component classes in the database.

The choice of comparison operator is straightforward. Just decide what the comparison you require is equal to, not equal to, greater than, and so on.

If you wish to apply more than one comparison, you will have to add logical operators to any additional comparison strings. The two operators used are AND and OR.

If you add an AND operator, it means that both or all comparisons must be true for the result to be added to the output list. The OR operator, on the other hand, means that the result adds to the output list if either or any of the comparisons is true.

Standard SQL wild cards can be used in queries. The wild cards "%" and "*" can be used to replace any number of characters. The wild card "_" (underscore) can be used to replace a single character.