The search dialog of the detailed Asset Search consists of one or more tabs with a collection of searchable asset attributes. The search dialog is highly customizable and role-specific, so the actual dialog might look differently for different roles within one system and between different systems. 

Start Asset Search

Open a detailed Asset Search window by clicking on the large magnifying glass or by pressing the shortcut ( STRG+F / CMD F). This opens a dialog box and a combination of fuzzy search algorithms (fulltext fields) and specific search fields.

Search tabs in the Asset search dialog

The Asset search dialog can consist of one or more tabs. In the default configuration it consists of three tabs.

  1. The first one is called General and contains a collection of the most common asset attributes in the daily routine, such as the asset name and type, workflow criteria, deadlines, domains and the like. This  General-tab, as the first tab, becomes visible by default when the Asset search dialog is opened and it is usually customized to contain exactly those criteria that are essential for a given role.

  2. The second tab Flags typically contains attributes that have a one-to-many relation with the assets. In the default configuration, these are the Production flags and Placement categories. 

  3. The third tab is called Advanced. It contains a sophisticated generic query builder. You can combine search terms with the Boolean operators AND (Standard), OR and NOT by clicking the (+)-Icon. Also full text searches based on the contents of documents can be performed via the edit field "Content". For comparison (less than, bigger than), use ranges, partial string search and the like. The advanced query builder can build any query possible. In practice, the advanced query builder is used when the other search tabs do not offer sufficient options for the searching task.


Using "Recent searches" in the "Asset query" menu you have access to the last ten searches of your current session. With the restart of the client, these entries get lost. The last performed search can be saved permanently via the menu command "Asset Query · Save search as...". To rerun the previous search you can also click on the refresh icon right to the magnifying glass icon for Advanced search. When there are too many search results, the arrows become enabled for turning to the next or previous page in the result list.

Basic usage of the search dialog

The search results can be rendered more precisely under the "Advanced" tab. Here the following mathematical operators are available:

<, ≦, =, >, ≧, !=, like(%), IN, IS NULL, NOT NULL


Examples:

Search query:
Name: "*ola"
Result:
"Carola"

The use of a wildcard * in front of a search string returns all results that end with the search string. For example, this can also be useful to find assets with a certain file extension.

Search query:
Name: "coc*"
Result:
"Coca-Cola Zero"
"Cocktail"

With a wildcard before and after the search string, it is treated as a substring, and therefore all kinds of results get displayed.

The basic use of the search dialog is straight forward. Structured key attributes are displayed as popup menus or checkboxes, so the search criteria can be chosen from the defined master data. For all textual attributes (like the asset name, the fulltext content of documents and others) the search criteria can be written into the editable text boxes. There are two wildcards that can be used for textual search terms in the normal tabs (but not in the  Advanced  query builder!):

  • * is a wildcard for any number of characters

  • ? is a wildcard for one single character

The wildcards can be mixed, there can be any number of them and they can appear anywhere in the search term.
Short search terms in conjunction with wildcards may result in performance issues.

There is some special behaviour of the search field for the asset’s name. There are very often internal standards at the customer site, to name certain types of assets in a common, descriptive way. For example, a publishing house that produces a monthly magazine might decide to construct the names of the issue-assets from the year, the publication number, an title-key and some free text:

"2011/12_ABC The ABC Magazine (christmas edition)"

Following such a naming convention allows to execute very precise search queries based on the wildcards. For this reason, the search string in the asset name attribute is interpreted in a very strict way: whitespace is treated as is, wildcards have to be provided in the beginning and end of the search term (otherwise the asset’s names have to start or end exactly as stated), and the order of characters in the search term is binding. Examples according to the issue-asset naming convention as stated before would be:

  • 2011* finds all issues of the year 2011

  • /12 would find nothing (this looks for an asset that is named exactly "/12")

  • */12_* would find all December issues of all titles

  • ????/12* would find all December issues of all titles

  • 2011*_ABC* would find all issues of title ABC of the year 2011


Search terms in the asset name field without any wildcards will only match those assets whose name are exactly as the search name!

All other textual attributes, especially the document fulltext content, the metadata search field and the keywords list behave like an internet search, which means that whitespace is not interpreted as searchable text, but separates individual, order-independent search words which are treated as partial strings and it is not necessary to type wildcards in front or at the end of the search words (but it is possible to use the " * "- and " ? " wildcards within the search word!). No prefix means that the word might match or not (but if it is the only term, it has to match). If there are multiple words without prefix, at least one of them must match (OR-search).

The query builder

The query builder in the Advanced tab of the search dialog gives a very generic approach to creating search queries. The first search criterion is created by clicking the    button, choosing an attribute from the popup menu, choosing a comparison type from the popup menu and filling in a comparison value. Subsequent search terms might then be created by either clicking the   button for an AND-connected search term, the  Or-button for an alternative search term or the  Not-Button for the exclusion of the search term. Creating additional search criteria as OR- or NOT-connected opens up a new hierarchical sublevel, in which new search criteria can be created.

The available comparison types are:

  • = the attribute has to match the search criterion exactly. Wildcards are not supported, but rather treated as text!

  • <, >, <=, >= less than, greater than comparison. While this options are supposed to be used mainly with numerical fields, they also work with letters.  " <c " in the asset name for example, will match assets whose name starts with "a" or "b".

  • like (%) wildcard comparison.  The " * " or " % " character can be used synonymously as wildcard.

  • IN range search (announced, not applicable yet)

  • IS NULL matches when the attribute has no value at all

  • NOT NULL matches when the attribute has any value


All textual search criteria are case insensitive!

All search criteria that are filled in the search dialog, no matter to which tab they belong, are significant for the search process and combined in the actual search query! It is a big advantage to be able to combine search criteria of all tabs, not only the criteria in the active tab are used for the query. If a query does not deliver the expected results it might be helpful to review all tabs to understand the effect of the query.

There is a built-in live filtering feature in the search dialog, that executes an invisible background query every time a search criterion is modified in the dialog. This feature is filtering out non-existing combination values in the popup menus of the master data attributes. For example: when an asset type is set as a search term, but there are no assets of this specific type in a given workflow, this workflow will be eliminated from the options of the workflow-attribute search criterion. Whenever the user is missing some expected value in a search criteria popup menu it is most likely, that this value does not exist in combination with the already defined search criteria!

Search for asset relations

The Advanced search offers an option to search for asset relations.

This is a power-user feature and is not recommended for occasional users of the Advanced Asset search. But administrators and key users should be able to implement the search for relations into the workflow and make common searches available under "Stored Searches".

Example:

The search should find all assets of type layout that are already placed in one issue.

  • In the Search dock click the "Expert" tab. Now define all search criteria

  • Below „Not“ you will now also find the new button for "Relation". Clicking on "Relation" opens the sub-dialog for defining direction and type.

  • The search finds all layouts which are already placed in an issue and which belong to "My tasks".