Performing an Ad-hoc Search

Ad-hoc search enables you to quickly perform a one-off search, based on one or more top-level attributes of a case class.

Ad-hoc search simplifies the search criteria selection by showing only top-level attributes of the case class. The contained classes and nested grouping of conditions are not provided. Ad-hoc search applies the condition to all the search criteria.

You can also save your ad-hoc searches as parameterized searches. For example, you may want to perform many searches that use the same case attributes but different filter criteria. By saving your search as a parametized search, you can retrieve only the attributes you want.

You can only select one case class in each ad-hoc search. If you want to search another case class, you must go back and select a new case class.

Prerequisites

You must login as a user that has the following system actions assigned:
  • To perform an ad-hoc search or a parameterized ad-hoc search, the readGlobalData system action must be assigned.
  • To edit, save or delete ad-hoc or parameterized ad-hoc searches, both the readGlobalData and manageDataView system actions must be assigned.

Procedure

  1. From the Select an item to start an ad-hoc search box, a list of the available case classes for all business object models deployed to your ActiveMatrix BPM system are displayed.
  2. Select the case class that you want to perform the search for.
    The attributes available for the case class are displayed.
  3. Select a logical operator for the attribute you want to perform the search on. Depending on the data type of the attribute you selected, you can select one of the following:
    Option Description
    EQ

    Equal to value. If value contains any unescaped wildcard symbols ('_' or '?' for single character, '%' or '*' for anything - any of which can be escaped by prefixing with '\'), this will result in a 'like' comparison. For example:

    apple = "apple"

    banana% = "banana%"

    cherry% = like cherry%

    damson\*? = like damson\*?

    NEQ Not equal to the value.
    GT Greater than value.
    GTE Greater than or equal to value.
    LT Lower than value.
    LTE Lower than or equal to value.
    IN Equal to one of the values in an array. For example, IN('abc', 'bcd', 'def').
    NOT_IN Not equal to any of the values.
    BETWEEN Between value#1 and value#2 (inclusive).
    NOT_BETWEEN Not between value#1 and value#2 (inclusive).
    NULL Object reference is null.
    NOT_NULL Object reference is not null.
    TYPE_OF Object referenced is of a particular type (where value is fully qualified class name) or a sub-type of that type.
    If the searchable attribute is an array, you can also specify filter criteria for the array. See Filtering Array Attributes in Case Views.
  4. Specify a value for the attribute. The value must match the data type for the data type of the attribute. See "BOM Native Types" in the Business Data Services Guide for more information. The data type of the value is displayed in the value field.
  5. You must specify filter criteria for at least one attribute. When configuring additional attributes, you are combining a logical AND into a single expression. Repeat Step 3 - Step 4 for all the other available attributes that you want to configure filter criteria for.
  6. Once you have specified your filter criteria, select Search.
    The search results display. The case attributes listed in your case summary are displayed. The case summary is defined at design-time in TIBCO Business Studio. See TIBCO Business Studio Modeling Guide for more information.
  7. You can either:
    • Select to exit the search without saving it.
    • Select Save Search, if you want to save the search.
    • Select Edit to rerun the search.
    1. In the Name field, type a name for your search. The name must be unique.
    2. (Optional) In the Description field, enter a description for your search.
    3. (Optional) In the Category field, enter a category for your search. You can specify an existing category or create a new one. You can create a hierarchical structure for your categories using forward slashes, for example, Car/Release ID. Categories exist when a search is first associated with them and cease to exist when the last search in the category is deleted. If you do not specify a category, the searches are created under the UNCATEGORIZED category in Saved Searches.
    4. (Optional) You can save the search as a parameterized search. That is, you can save this search for one or more specific case attributes. From the Select items to save the search as parameterized (optional) field, select the case attributes you want.
      By default, the attribute names are listed in the field but you can specify a label for the attribute if you wish.
  8. Select Save Changes.