Fields in Laserfiche allow you to store a wide variety of information and categorize it in many different ways.

You can create fields to store names and addresses, numerical codes, phone numbers, dates and times, and so on; you can also create templates to organize those fields and to categorize your documents.However, when retrieving that information, it may be difficult to remember which field or template you stored a piece of information in. Was the invoice code in the “Code Number” field or the “Invoice” field? Is the document you want a “Purchase Order” or an “Invoice”?

In Laserfiche 8.3, when you can’t remember these details, you can bypass them entirely. You can use an advanced search to locate all documents with a particular string in a field – regardless of what template has been applied to them or what field the string is in. You can also narrow down the search by either field or template.

For example, say a user wants to locate a document with the purchase order number “35401.” She isn’t sure whether the purchase order number was in the “Code” field or the “Order” field, but she knows that the template was “Purchase Order.” She could use the following syntax to find the number “35401” anywhere in the “Purchase Order” template, regardless of the specific field:

{[Purchase Order]:[]=”35401″}

This would return documents with the value “35401” anywhere in the “Purchase Order” template, but would not return documents in other templates, even if they contained the value “35401.” This is useful for narrowing down the possibilities. Even if this number is also present in a document in “Invoices,” the user knows she isn’t looking for an invoice and won’t need to sift through irrelevant details.

Or perhaps the user knows that the order number was in the “Code” field, but isn’t sure whether the document she wants is an invoice or a purchase order or some other type entirely. In that case, she would use the following syntax.

{[]:="35401"}

Note: The example above will return the same results as a Field search in the Laserfiche Client.

This would return all documents with a “Code” field which had a value of “35401,” regardless of the template, but wouldn’t return other fields even if they contained “35401.” This is useful when you know that you may have the same value in other contexts in other documents, but you don’t need to look at them.

Finally, if the user has no idea which template or field she needs, but she does know the value, she can search for any document with any field containing “35401,” regardless of template. She would use the following syntax:

{[]:[]=”35401″}

This would return documents with the value “35401” in any field, as a part of any template. While this might return a large number of documents, depending on how often that value is used, it can help you ensure that you find the correct document even if you can’t remember where the value was stored.

Note: This search can also be performed in the Laserfiche Client using a Basic search with the All Fields option selected.

Note that the more general your search is, the longer it will take and the more results it is likely to return. If you do know the field or template that the document is in, it’s a good idea to specify those in the search. These search types allow you to quickly locate all documents on a particular topic or related to a particular customer, order or date, regardless of the context. They are very powerful and flexible searches.