Advanced Search

Overview

Good practice around keeping basic details up to date on People will make learning and using search tools in Invenias a very simple process. Advanced Search is one of the tools you can use to find information in your database, but developing the habit of attaching searchable documents, keeping work history of the people you have relationships with up to date, recording the Location of those People where appropriate and coding People with Categories will make searching for Relevant people very fast and many users will find that most of their "searching" needs can be fulfilled by searching and filtering within the numerous list views.

Advanced Search allows a user to either be more targeted with your searches, combine different types of search or do a deep-dive into the data to search based on many different criteria.

You can also save the Search Criteria and Results by using the Save As option found below your search results.

This article covers:

Opening Advanced Search

Advanced Search is available for the following record types: People, Companies, Assignments, Programmes, Journal and Documents. Any Invenias Professional user can open Advanced Search by clicking into the relevant record type drop-down in the Invenias tab in Outlook or the any of the List View ribbon toolbars.

In the example below we will open the People Advanced Search:

Inside any Record, you can also launch the Advanced Search from the Search button in the toolbar.

In this example the User selected the "Full Text Search" layout which only contains the Full Text Search section and opens as shown below:

To Search, enter your search criteria in any of the sections in the search layout and click SEARCH to view the results. 

Note that you have the same options in advanced search results as you have in the main list views. You can run actions through the context menu, filter the grid, export the results (by permission) etc. Click here for a full guide on the features available from a list view. 

A Search Layout is an Advanced Search that has been configured to contain certain sections from the numerous options available (e.g. Full Text Search, Categories, Positions). These sections search for information in specific areas of the database. Users are able to create their own layouts or modify existing layouts and Save them as either User or Global layouts. The sections available are different for each record type. 

To add or remove a section of the Search, click to the +/- Search SearchSection Button to add/remove the sections of your choice:

Click EDIT LAYOUT to reveal further options to allow the user to re-order the sections using the MOVE UP/ MOVE DOWN controls as shown below: 

Once the sections have been modified to the preference of the User, they can be saved by clicking the SAVE CURRENT LAYOUT button to reveal the window shown below:

 

The user can select to overwrite an existing Search Layout or create a new Layout, saving as either a User or Global Layout. When saving a search layout, this will also save the search terms entered into any of the sections and all options selected in each of the sections.

User Layout = Only visible to the current User

Global Layout = Visible to all Users.

Permission Required: Please note, you need the "Create User Search Layouts" or "Create Global Search Layouts" permissions to Save Search layouts. 

Full Text Search

The most commonly used section in Advanced Search is the Full Text Search. This section supports keyword Boolean searching using standard search operators such as AND, NOT, OR etc. 

These operators will be explained below: 

AND

"CFO AND Finance" searches for records that contain both "CFO" and "Finance" in them. 

OR

"CFO OR Finance" searches for records that contain either "CFO" or "Finance"

AND/NOT

"CFO AND NOT Finance" searches for records that contain "CFO", but will not return them if they contain the word "finance".

NEAR

"CFO" NEAR Finance" will bring back results that have the term "CFO" within 15 words of "Finance" (in either direction)

BRACKETS ( )

Using a search term that has brackets in it means that you can have more complex searches such as bringing back records that have CFO AND finance OR accountant in them.

ASTERISK *

 

The asterisk will allow you to search for words that start with the same letters. For instance typing in finan* will also return records containing "finance" and "financial".

"Quote marks"

Using quote marks around a search term instructs the search to only return results with that specific phrasing/layout/spelling. I.E if you put "Precise Sear", only records with Precise Sear will come back, records containing "Precise Search" will not come back.

Full Text Search Options

Click SEARCH OPTIONS in the Full Text Search section to expand the options shown below:

  • Primary text Fields - Click here for a full list of the fields included in the Search.
  • Current Positions - Searches within Current Positions.
  • Previous Positions - Searches within Previous Positions
  • Education - Searches within Education
  • Placements - Searches within Offers/Placements
  • References - Searches within References
  • CV/Resume - Searches within Document set as Default CV/Resume
  • PersonalProfile - Searches Personal Profile field
  • NotePad - Searches within Notepad field
  • Match Across Multiple Fields - Return matches for the criteria in the search across multiple fields in a record. 
  • Match Within a Single Field - Only return matches for all criteria in the search within a single Field in a record. 

You can specify which fields to search within using the search you entered into the Full Text Search section. 

The options will be different for Full Text Search for each Record type. Click here for a detailed guide on the options available for all Record Types.

Categories Section

This section allows a user to search based on Categories. Click +/- ADD/REMOVE CATEGORIES to expand the drop down shown below to select which categories to include in this section:

  

Type into the text box adjacent to each category list name to add a category to the search, or use the magnifier icon to open the category window to manually select categories.

In the screenshot below the user has added 2 categories to Industry:

You can change the search Operator from OR to AND by clicking into the operator as below:

 

This will change the operators between the categories in this category list.

Date / Time Elapsed

If you have a Category list with the Date/Time Elapsed Filter on, you can search based on entries to these fields in this section by first adding a category to the search, e.g. Aerospace & Defense, then clicking the dropdown next to the category shown below:

You can choose to select a Date or the Time elapsed, then add a search condition e.g. At Least 5 years. 

Position Section

This section allows a user to search for People based on Position history. 

All fields (excluding date fields) support multiple entries such as in the example below:

Search Options

  • Permanent / Interim / Non Exec - Only Search within Positions of the selected Employment types. 
  • Current Positions - Search within Current Positions.
  • Previous Positions - Search within Previous Positions.
  • Other Positions - Search within Position Types other than Current or Previous.
  • Match Across Multiple Positions - Return matches for the criteria in the search across multiple positions in a record. 
  • Match Within a Single Position - Only return matches for the criteria in the search where they are present in a single position in a record. 

Education Section 

This section allows a user to search for People based on their Education:

Search Options

Match Across Education/Qualification - Return matches for the criteria in the search across multiple Qualifications in a record. 

Match Within a Single Document- Only return matches for the criteria in the search where they are present in a single Qualification in a record. 

Documents Section

Target your search against Documents saved to Records. 

You can add a Boolean search using the same operators described in the Full text Search section above. 

Search Options

Documents types - Specify which Document types to include in the Search. 

Match Across Multiple Documents - Return matches for the criteria in the search across multiple Documents in a record. 

Match Within a Single Document- Only return matches for the criteria in the search where they are present in a single Document in a record. 

Journal Section

You can add a Boolean search using the same operators described in the Full text Search section above. 

Search Options

Journal Items (unarchived) Types - Search within unarchived journal items and specify the item types to search for. 

Journal Items (archived) Types - Search within archived journal items and specify the item types to search for. 

Match Across Multiple Documents - Return matches for the criteria in the search across multiple Documents in a record. 

Match Within a Single Document- Only return matches for the criteria in the search where they are present in a single Document in a record. 

Structured Search Section

The Structured Search is a field by field search that enables users to search on fields directly within a record and or within a related record or item, and is available in all searches, i.e. Assignments, Companies, People, Programmes, Journal and Document searches.

By the nature of its functionality, the Structured Search is the most complex of our Search Types and will typically not be required by most users for day to day working with Invenias. There may be some use cases that are not supported using Structured Search, where we could build an Excel report for you to access the data, here's an example.

The search is visually broken into multiple queries, showing each field or related item, and each with its own condition. The queries can then be joined with operators, both singularly and in groups.

To aid the user, Invenias added colours to each part of a query to represent that part.

  • Fields will be represented in Green
  • Related Items and Related Item Conditions will be represented in Purple
  • Operators will be represented in Red
  • Conditions will be represented in Blue
  • Values will be represented in Black {these are the search terms}

The search opens up in an empty state as shown below:

Click ADD/REMOVE to add a Field, Relation item or Group:

When constructing a search, you can add fields which are present within the selected Record type. Or you can add related items to then add fields from other Record Types. 

For instance if you were running a people search and you wanted to only search for people who have a home address in the United Kingdom, who have been a candidate on an Assignment with fit to profile text containing the word "Perfect". 

You would start by adding a field of Home Address Country by clicking ADD/REMOVE, then ADD Field and selecting Home Country, as shown below:

Select the condition as "EQUALS":

and select "United Kingdom":

Next we will add the Related Item "Candidate Assignments" by clicking Add/Remove>Add Related Item, then search for Candidate Assignments, as shown below:

We can now add the Field for Fit to Profile by clicking Add/Remove>Add Field:

Search for and select "Relation: Fit to Profile":

Set the condition as "Contains":

And add the word "Perfect" to complete this Search. 

Click here to view some further examples using Structured Search. 

Company Advanced Search

 Companies Advanced Search contains the following sections:

  • Full Text Search
  • Category Search
  • Structured Search
  • Journal Search
  • Documents Search

Full Text Search Options

Primary Text Fields - Click here for a full list of the fields included in the Search.

Placements- Search within Offers/Placements. 

Company Profile - Search within the Company profile Field in Companies. 

Notepad - Search within the Programmes Notes Field.

Match Across Multiple Fields - Return matches for the criteria in the search across multiple fields in a Company record. 

Match Within a Single Field - Return matches for the criteria in the search only where present in a single field in a Company record. 

Assignments Advanced Search

 Companies Advanced Search contains the following sections:

  • Full Text Search
  • Category Search
  • Structured Search
  • Journal Search
  • Documents Search

Full Text Search Options

Primary Text Fields - Click here for a full list of the fields included in the Search.

Placements- Search within Offers/Placements. 

Company Profile - Search within the Company profile Field in Companies. 

Notepad - Search within the Programmes Notes Field.

Match Across Multiple Fields - Return matches for the criteria in the search across multiple fields in a Company record. 

Match Within a Single Field - Return matches for the criteria in the search only where present in a single field in a Company record. 

You can add a Rank column to the search results page, which displays a

numerical value based on the frequency that Full text search terms appear

in the CV resume pane and their proximity to each other. You can sort the

results list on this column meaning you can review a list of People records

by frequency of your search terms and how close they are together. You

don't have to click into each row to get a view on which records have the

highest count of keyword matches in the pane as the column is in the

results grid.

Programmes Advanced Search

Full Text Search 

Programmes Advanced Search contains the following sections:

  • Full Text Search
  • Structured Search
  • Journal Search
  • Documents Search

Full Text Search Options

Primary Text Fields - Click here for a full list of the fields included in the Search.

Candidates- Search within Candidates in Assignments. 

Placements - Search within Placements in Assignments. 

Assignment Brief- Search within the Programmes Notes Field

Match Across Multiple Fields - Return matches for the criteria in the search across multiple fields in an Assignment record. 

Match Within a Single Field - Return matches for the criteria in the search only where present in a single field in an Assignment record. 

Journal Search

Journal Advanced Search contains the following sections:

  • Full Text Search
  • Structured Search

Full Text Search Options

Journal Items (unarchived) Types - Search within unarchived journal items and specify the item types to search for. 

Journal Items (archived) Types - Search within archived journal items and specify the item types to search for. 

Documents Search

Documents Advanced Search contains the following sections:

  • Full Text Search
  • Structured Search

Full Text Search Options

Document Types - Specify the Document types to search within.