To search for documents that have exactly two specific values in a multiple value field, you would use the following syntax.

• {[]:[field]=(”fieldvalue”,”fieldvalue”)}

For example, to search for documents with a multiple value Author field containing only Bill and John, the syntax would be:

• {[]:[Author]=(”Bill”,”John”)}

This search will return all entries assigned the multiple value Author field containing exactly Bill and John. If this multiple value field also contains another author, the document will NOT be returned.

To search for documents that have two specific values in a multiple value field, plus any other value(s), you would use the following syntax.

• {[]:[field]=”fieldvalue”}& {[]:[field]=”fieldvalue”)

For example, you want to return all documents that Bill and John worked on with other people. You would use the following syntax.

• {[]:[Author]=”Bill”}&{[]:[Author=”John”}

This search will return all documents assigned the multiple value Author field containing Bill and John, as well as any other author(s) regardless of who the other author(s) might be. If this multiple value field also contains Connie and Roger, the document will be returned.

Note: You can use the same syntax in Web Access to search for multiple value fields.

The new Common Searches Pane makes searching more straightforward with a set of pre-configured searches that you can perform with one click. The Common Searches Pane has three categories of searches.

Note: Since this is a beta, the details and appearances of certain elements may change between now and the final release. If you would like to participate in the last couple weeks of the Workflow 8.2 Beta, please send an e-mail to WFBeta@laserfiche.com. The Workflow 8.2 Beta ends July 4, 2011.

Default Searches

The Default Search category lets you search for workflow instances that ran within the last day or the last 15 minutes.

• Recent Activity: Workflows that ran in the last 15 minutes.
• Today’s Activity: Workflows that ran today.
• Today’s Completed Workflows: Workflows that ran today that did not end with an error.
• Today’s Terminated Workflows: Workflows that ran today that did end with an error.

My Searches

The My Searches category allows you to create and save a search for future use. When you click on New Search under My Searches, you can configure and save a search in the Search Pane. Your saved search will appear under My Searches, letting you run that search anytime you want simply by clicking on it.

Search by Workflow

The Search by Workflow category lists all of your published workflows. Clicking on a workflow name searches for all instances of that workflow, regardless of when they ran or what version of the workflow they are.

You can further refine any of these common searches by right-clicking on the Common Searches Pane and selecting to not include running and/or completed workflows in your search.

With one step, you can now search all of the following resources:

• Knowledge Base articles
• Downloads
• Tech papers
• Marketing resources
• Videos
• Presentations
• DevNotes
• Code library items

(Note: only the forums are not included in the results of the main Support Site search, and must still be searched separately.)

Searching Tips
Enter a term into the search box at the top of any Support Site screen. For tips on returning more precise and relevant search results, click on the Search Tips link next to the Search button.

Filtering Results
Browse through or filter the results for type of resource, software product it refers to, download type or file type. (To remove a filter you have selected, click the gray/red “x” that will appear next to the filter in the left pane.)

We plan to continue improving the Support Site’s search functionality, including adding advanced search capabilities. We also welcome your feedback on the usability and functionality of the new search at documentation@laserfiche.com.

Note: Since this is a preview, the details and appearances of certain elements may change between now and the final release.

Page Count

You can limit your search results to return documents that contain a specific number of pages or that fall within a certain page range. For example, you can return documents that have exactly three pages, more than three pages, less than three pages or that fall between three and five pages.

To perform a Page Count search, open the Search Pane, click Customize Search and select Pages.

Selecting Multiple Folders to Search Through or Exclude

You can limit your search results by searching within multiple folders inside your repository. For example, Roger wants to look through medical records that only Susan scanned into Laserfiche. He performs a Created By search for Susan, but quickly realizes there are too many results to sort through. To narrow his results, he adds a Within Folder search and searches within the Medications and Test Results folders to return only the medication and test result records that were scanned by Susan.

You can also use the Within Folder search to exclude one or more folders when you run a search. For example, test results are organized by month inside the Test Results folder. You want to search for all test results in 2010, with the exception of those scanned in September and November. Add the Test Results folder to the Within Folder search and select within from the drop down menu. Then, add the September and November folders and select not in from the drop down menu. This will search through the Test Results folder for every month in 2010 except September and November.

To search within multiple folders, open the Search Pane, click Customize Search and select Within Folder.

Electronic File Size

In addition to searching for documents that have electronic files associated with them, you can also specify the electronic file size in bytes (B), kilobytes (KB) or megabytes (MB). For example, Lesley can search for documents that have electronic files associated with them and that are smaller than one megabyte in size.

To search for electronic files that are less than, exactly or more than a specific size, click Customize Search and select Electronic Files.

Note: These search enhancements will also be available in Web Access 8.2.

Stemming

For text searches in Laserfiche 8.2, you can enable search word stemming, which allows you to find all words that naturally stem from the root of your original search term. For example, if you search for the word “joust,” stemming will find all documents that contain the word “joust” as well as ones that contain “jousts,” “jousted,” “jousting,” etc.

To turn stemming on or off, select or clear the Include variations of root words in results checkbox under the General section of the Search node in the Options dialog box.

Searching within Results

After you have performed a search, you can choose to search within those results using the Refine results button at the bottom of the Search Pane.

When you click this button, any search criteria you have specified will be used to search through only the entries returned by the previous search. This feature is especially useful if your first search returns a very large number of results and you want to narrow down the results from this set using additional criteria.

For example, Brian wants to find all of his travel records and runs a User search to find all the documents he has created. After realizing there are too many entries to sort through, he decides to narrow his results by adding a Within Folder search for the Travel Records folder and clicking Refine results.

Note: The Refine results button will be disabled until after you have run an initial search.

Limiting the Number of Results for Text Searches

In previous versions of Laserfiche, there were no limits to the number of results that could be returned for full-text searches. Depending on the size of your repository and the scope of your search criteria, running a full-text search had the potential to return an overwhelming list of results.

In Laserfiche 8.2, however, you will have the option to limit the maximum number of results for full-text searches. The limit you specify applies to the number of entries returned, rather than the total number of context hits contained within those entries. This feature is especially useful if you know that you only want to view, for example, the 100 most relevant entries for your search.

To set a limit, select the Limit text searches to checkbox under the Results Display section of the Search node in the Options dialog box, and use the Maximum results field to specify your limit.

Note: All of the searches detailed below can be used with wildcards.

Parent/Child Entry Name

The Parent Entry Name search can be used to find an entry based on the name of its parent entry (i.e., the folder that contains a particular document or folder). This is particularly useful when you want to find the contents of a particular folder, but you don’t know its repository file path or the names of any of the documents within it. For example, Jen wants to view all of the documents in the folder named “Patient Billings for January 2010,” but she can’t remember where it’s located in her repository. She can use the Parent Entry Name advanced search string with that folder name

{LF:ParentName=“Patient Billings for January 2010”}

and her search will return all of the entries contained within the “Patient Billings for January 2010” folder. Similarly, she could do the reverse search with the name of a child entry (i.e., the document or folder within a particular folder). For example, if she wants to find the folder that houses the document named “Bill #192,” she can enter the Child Entry Name search syntax with that document name

{LF:ChildName=“Bill #192”}

to find that folder.

Note: The Parent Entry Name search will only include an entry’s immediate children in the results, and the Child Entry Name search will only include an entry’s immediate parents in the results.

Shortcut Name/ID

The Shortcut Name and Shortcut ID searches allow you to find all of the shortcuts that link to a specific entry based on that entry’s name or ID number. Both of these searches are useful because they locate shortcuts based on a property related to the target entry (its name or entry ID), rather than the shortcuts themselves, making it easier to keep track of your shortcuts anywhere in your repository. For example, if I want to find all of the shortcuts that target the folder named “Performance Reviews,” I can insert that folder name into the Shortcut Name search syntax

{LF:ShortcutName=“Performance Reviews”}

to find the shortcuts for that entry. Similarly, I can use the folder’s entry ID number (2021) with Shortcut ID search syntax

{LF:ShortcutID=“2021”}

to find those same shortcuts.

For more advanced search syntax strings, see Advanced Search Syntax 8.1 at support.laserfiche.com.

These days, however, an officer responding to the same call can pull up reports right in their patrol car, accessing information vital to the safety of the EDP – and the public – using just a name, incident number or other simple keyword.

It’s this kind of progressive approach to information and process management that’s transformed the Hamilton Police Service from a command-and-control police model to a community-based-and-problem-solving service over the last decade. As HPS Records Supervisor Gary Holden puts it, “Laserfiche has allowed us to spend more time in the community and less time travelling back and forth to the station.”

But this progressive approach had to begin somewhere, and it started in 2000 when IT Manager Ross Memmlo began investigating document management to alleviate storage costs and repurpose valuable office space. Franz Gangl of Laserfiche reseller IKON Office Solutions demonstrated Laserfiche’s information management capabilities for Memmolo, IT Administrator Diana Scime, Shari Moore and Holden.

Holden says they chose Laserfiche based on four criteria:

• Business Functionality: “It needed to be really user-friendly, no matter how comfortable staff were with computers. Our reseller showed us an example of an agency about our size using a system similar in size and capacity to our proposal.”
• System Architecture: “The flexibility and expandability to allow for future development and integration was important.”
• Organization/Support Training: “We knew whenever we had a question, all we had to do was make that call to the 1-800 number.”
• Project Schedule: “According to our funding cycler, the system needed to be up and running by year’s end.”

Working with IKON, Memmlo planned a phased implementation that would begin with current reports, advance to backlog conversion, and finally establish Web access for officers and staff. Phase I began in fall 2002, scanning current incident reports and Motor Vehicle Collision (MVC) reports.

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In early 2002, the implementation team developed “banner pages” to enable Quick Fields to index various reports, which helped with a massive backlog conversion project that would eventually add 860,000 images to the system. “We were able to scan anything and everything – photographs, willsays, handwritten notes – into folders,” says Holden. By 2004, the Laserfiche repository held over 300,000 active and historical incident reports, DNA records, MVC reports, pardon files and sudden death reports.

“One challenge we faced was reworking our existing paper processes,” explains Holden. “Many of our serious offences needed to be disseminated to many different officers and divisions. The new process had to ensure the report was coded according to Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics, then scanned, entered on the Canadian Police Information Center (CPIC) system and reassigned for further investigation. The process changed how our Records Business Centre handled the reports.” To remedy the situation, Holden created a color-coded folder system staff use to process reports prior to scanning.

Quick Fields’ automated indexing also helped Holden to standardize the record keeping process, which, along with Laserfiche’s fuzzy search capabilities, has almost completely eradicated misfiling. “If a report is improperly indexed, we simply run a search to locate it within the database,” explains Holden.

This search capability has become especially empowering to police officers. “Optical Character Recognition (OCR) allows the front-line officer to glean valuable information from reports that wasn’t possible in the past,” Holden says.

“If an officer wants to know more about a rash of Breaking & Enterings where all he knows is a red pick-up that has a unique decal on the side door was involved, he can use Laserfiche search to look up other reports,” he adds. “We can’t possibly index every piece of information within a police report, but OCR and fuzzy search addresses that problem, making it a valuable investigative tool.”

It has become even more valuable since Hamilton deployed Laserfiche WebLink in 2004. Police Chief Brian Mullan, responding to a need for heightened police presence, realized he didn’t necessarily need to hire more officers if officers spent less time looking for paperwork. Holden explains. “With Internet access to the Laserfiche repository, officers can view police reports on their MDT [mobile data terminal],” he says. “It’s effectively made our cruisers an extension of our Records Management System (RMS). They can search five historical reports right away without linking.”

Adds Holden, “The ability to view active missing person photos or photographs of lost or stolen property is critical when locating a missing youth on the street or locating previously stolen property.”

For 2009-2010, the HPS Laserfiche team plans to expand Laserfiche to Hamilton’s Human Resources and Legal departments, but not before answering concerns about employee confidentiality and security rights.

For support, Holden looked to the Laserfiche Police User Groups he’s been attending for three years. “I knew York Police Service used Laserfiche in its HR department, so I thought, ‘Why re-invent the wheel?’ I asked them about their implementation and training process and what worked.” Based on what he learned, Holden formulated his own strategy, highlighting the ability to assign multi-layer security to employee records in transit, the ability for assigned HR staff to view documents from their desktop, as well as reducing paper files and better controlling retention.

The three patrol divisions in the City of Hamilton.

“We have three separate divisions. Laserfiche will allow yearly performance reviews to be shipped electronically between offices,” he explains. “It’s easy to understand Laserfiche as a simple storage repository, but you can move things around so you’re actually managing active records. The security capabilities of Laserfiche were a huge benefit for me to ensure confidentiality during this process, because I could assign rights that allowed a user to browse a report but not open it. They’d be directed to see the proper authority to obtain a copy of the report where necessary, which facilitated our disclosure processes.”

The ability to redact sensitive information was also key to the Records Business Center’s ability to process disclosures to the Courts and outside agencies. “The redaction ability of Laserfiche is by far, one the greatest assets to address these needs,” Holden says. “We used to copy our reports—twice—then black out the information and then copy the vetted version again. Redacting in Laserfiche saved us a fortune in paper and time. We also use stamping and sticky note annotations to address disclosure/non-disclosure issues and verification/validation processes of ongoing police investigations.”

It wasn’t until Holden could show that Laserfiche Audit Trail would ensure the integrity of legal documents that the Crown [District] Attorney signed on. “I had meetings with the Crown Attorney to ensure them there were no legal issues producing these documents as evidence in court,” Holden remembers. “We discussed the quality of the images and how we’d be using Audit Trail to confirm when a document was scanned or modified. We were ultimately able to scan in every document—except for witness statements, which they requested to remain in their original paper form.”

Ultimately, the Hamilton Police Service has realized a significant amount of savings by using Laserfiche to refine its business processes:

• $200,000 saved annually, due to downsizing 4 civilian staff in the Records Business Centre, as officers are able to access vital information directly.
• Officers spend more time in the community because they no longer need to attend Central Station to view reports.
• Clerks save time, because they no longer need to locate reports and read them to officers over the phone.
• Valuable floor space has been reclaimed from paper storage.
• Redacting documents in Laserfiche saves “a fortune in paper and time,” as Holden puts it, helping staff more easily meet file requests from the Courts and outside agencies.

• Spring 2002: The Project Team chooses Laserfiche.
• Fall 2002: Phase I begins. Staff start scanning in current incident reports and Motor Vehicle Collision (MVC) reports.
• 2003: Indexing is automated with Quick Fields. Backlog conversion of historical occurrence reports (860,000 images) takes 30 weeks.
• 2004: Phase I is successfully finished, with over 300,000 records and reports scanned into the system. Phase II begins. When it is finished, every officer and designated civilian will have direct access to Laserfiche through the Internet.
• 2009: Web access expands Laserfiche access to 120 additional users, including officers in their patrol cars.
• 2010: The Police Laserfiche Team plans to expand use to Human Resources and Legal Services departments.