Search Engine

Search Engine Overview

The TASS.web search engine provides a very powerful searching capability with the simplicity of a single search field which is conveniently positioned at the top of the entity picker screen.

All searching is case insensitive which means that you can enter your search criteria in any casing and records will still be found.

Each entity has specific fields which are mapped to the search engine.

How to Use the Search Engine

The search engine is a web-style plain English search which is very easy and convenient to use. Enter a search directly into the special Search field displayed at the top right of the entity picker screen.

Click into the field and enter your search string and press the 'Enter' key or click the 'Binoculars' icon to begin the search. The records matching your search are then displayed immediately below and a record count is also provided.

Example 1

Searching for all records where the surname is 'Bell' — enter 'bell' into the search field and press the 'Enter' key.

Example 2

Searching for all records where the town/suburb is 'Paddington' — enter 'Paddington' into the search field and press the 'Enter' key or the 'Binoculars' icon

You can make your search more specific by using wildcard characters and operators when entering your search string.

It is also possible to combine wildcard characters and operators into a single search.

The following words are ignored by the search engine:

a, an, and, are, as, at, be, but, by, for, if, in, into, is, it, no, not, of, on, or, s, such, t, that, the, their, then, there, these, they, this, to, was, will, with

Search Fields

When searching for records with the search engine in TASS.web there are specific fields within each module to search on.

Search Strings

A search is broken down into search strings and operators.

There are two types of search strings — Singles and Phrases. A Single Search String is a single word such as 'John' or 'Address'. A Phrase is a group of words surrounded by quotes such as "Brunswick Avenue".

Multiple terms can be combined together with other operators for more complex searches.

Wildcards

Wildcard characters are useful when searching for records using the TASS.web search engine.

Wildcards may also be used with operators.

There are two main wildcard characters that can be used when searching in fields '*' and '?'.

Using the * Symbol

To perform a multiple character wildcard search use the '*' symbol on the keyboard.

Multiple character wildcard searches look for zero or more characters in a search.

The symbol cannot be the first character in the search string but it can be used in the middle or at the end of a search string.

Example

To find records where the surname begins with 'Be...' and has zero or more characters in the field, enter 'be*' and press 'Enter'.

Or, to find records where the surname begins with 'Be...', and ends with 's', enter 'Be*s' and press 'Enter'.

Using the ? Symbol

To perform a single character wildcard search use the '?' symbol on the keyboard.

The single character wildcard search looks for search strings that match that with the single character replaced. The symbol replaces a single character in a search.

The symbol cannot be the first character in the search string but can be used in the middle or at the end of a search string.

Example

To find records where the surname begins with 'Be...' and has any two other characters, enter 'be??' and press 'Enter'.

Or to find records where the surname begins with 'Be...', has four more letters and ends in 's', enter 'be???s'.

Wildcards and Operators

Operators and wildcard characters are useful when searching for data or records throughout TASS.web.

Where you wish to search with several search words, but where only part of these search words is known, you can combine the '*' wildcard with the 'and' operator.

For example, to find records where the surname begins with 'Be...' and the town/suburb begins with 'Padd...', enter the search as 'be* and padd*' and press 'Enter'.

Operators

Operators are useful when searching for data or records throughout TASS.web.

They are special words that are used to indicate logical relationships between your search words.