Back Forward Help: Using the Advanced Search tool — Find Content panel

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Use the Find Content facility to search for a text value in every property value in every instance of all rules, all data instances, all work objects, or a selected class of these instances.

For example, you can search the entire HTML text of all the HTML rules in a RuleSet for that contain the word "Elvis" and do not contain the word "karma." You can search through generated HTML code in harness, section, and correspondence rules.

Searches are case-insensitive: kevin matches KEVIN and Kevin and kevIN. A search matches values of a single property only; you can't search for objects based on values in two or more properties.

zzz Prerequisites

These three facilities are available only when enabled through Dynamic Systems Settings instance. You can enable searches for rules, data instances, and work objects independently. When the Find Content facility is not enabled, all searches return no results.

After the feature is enabled, build the first indexes using the System Management application. During system pulse processing, the system automatically maintains indexes as rules (and data objects and work objects) are created, updated, and deleted.

See Understanding the Find Content facility.

zzz Searching for rules

Select Rules in the Find Content box to search rules.

Field

Description
(link)

To search only one rule type, select a single rule type:

  1. Click the link to access a list of categories, such as Process.
  2. Select a category from the list.
  3. Select a rule type from the right column that appears. (Don't select a data class such as Service Package. These are not rules.)
All

Select to search all rule types. You can complete the Applies To, Property, Search For, and Scope fields to restrict the search.

Applies To

SmartPromptOptional. If the rule type has an initial Applies To key part, you can select a value here to restrict the search. Select the exact class of the rules to be searched; no class inheritance is used in this search.
Property

SmartPromptOptional. To search the value of only one property of the rule, select that property here.

To learn the properties that define a rule type, open any rule of that type and click the RuleData toolbar button (RuleData). For example, select the property listed to search the corresponding rule form text:

  • .pyLabel — Short Description text

  • .pyDescription — Description text

  • .pyUpdateOperator — Update Operator ID

You can enter either a top-level or an embedded property. For example, enter pyStepsActivityName to search (all elements of) the Method column on the Steps tab of an activity.

If you checked the All box, leave this field blank, or choose a property defined in the @baseclass class or the Rule- class.
Search For

Type a word, phrase, or query to be found in the value of one property. A word is at least two characters long and contains only letters, digits, underscores, and dash characters. If your search term includes underscore or dash characters, surround the term with double quotes. Case is not significant.

For example:

  • Valid words: alpha, 472, "Work-Folder-", "A_B_C", "pre-post-analysis"
  • Not valid: Work-4, Pega-RULES:SysAdmin, <div>, left arrow, A(3)

See Search syntax and stop word list for more information on the phrases and queries you can enter here.
Scope

SmartPromptSelect a single RuleSet to search, or All RuleSets to search all rules in the database, including checked-out rules in personal RuleSets.

 Search  

Click to perform the search. The system presents the results in a new window, ordered by relevance to the search criteria. For example, if you search for a Short Description (property pyLabel) containing the word tin, a rule containing the label:

Rin Tin Tin was a famous German Shepherd dog.

scores as highly relevant because Tin appears twice.

Click any row to open the corresponding rule. Some rules in the search results may belong to RuleSets or RuleSet Versions you cannot open.

zzz Searching for work objects

Select Work in the Find Content field to search for words within work objects.

This facility is initially disabled. To support this facility, update the appropriate Dynamic System Settings instances and use the System Management application to create an initial set of indexes.

Do not confuse this text search with the Work search in the Find tool, which opens a work object based upon a work object ID.

Field

Description
All

Select to search all work objects of all types.
Work Type

SmartPromptOptional. If you did not select All, select a work type (a concrete class derived from the Work- base class.)

You can't search multiple work types or an entire class group at once.
Property

SmartPromptOptional. To search the value of only one property of the work object, select that property here.

If you checked the All check box, leave this field blank, or choose a property defined in the @baseclass class or the Work- class.
Search For

Type a word, phrase, or query to be found in the value of one property. A word is at least two characters long and contains only letters, digits, underscores, and dash characters. If your search term includes underscore or dash characters, surround the term with double quotes. Case is not significant.

  • Valid words: alpha, Work-Folder-, A_B_C, pre-post-analysis
  • Not valid: 4, Work-4, Pega-RULES:SysAdmin, "hello", left arrow, A(3)

See Search syntax and stop word list for more information on the phrases and queries you can enter here.
 Search  

Click to perform the search. The system presents the results in a new window, ordered by relevance to the search criteria.

Click any row to open the corresponding work object.

zzz Searching for data instances

Select Data in the Find Content box to search data classes. This facility is initially disabled. To support this facility, update the appropriate Dynamic System Settings instances and use the System Management application to create an initial set of indexes.

Field

Description
(link)

To search only one data type, select a single class in three steps.

  1. Click the link to access a list of categories.
  2. Select a category from the list.
  3. Select a data class such as Broadcast from the right column that appears. (Don't select a rule type such as Activity, Property, or Class. By definition, these hold rule instances, not data objects.)

All

Select to search all data classes.

Property

SmartPromptOptional. To search the value of only one property of the data class, select that property here. For example, select the property listed to search the corresponding text:

  • .pyLabel — Short Description text
  • .pyDescription — Description text
  • .pyUpdateOperator — Update Operator ID

You can enter either a top-level or an embedded property.

If you checked the All check box, leave this field blank, or choose a property defined in the @baseclass class or the Data- class.
Search For

Type a word, phrase, or query to be found in the value of one property. A word is at least two characters long and contains only letters, digits, underscores, and dash characters. If your search term includes underscore or dash characters, surround the term with double quotes. Case is not significant.

  • Valid words: alpha, Work-Folder-, 387, A_B_C, pre-post-analysis
  • Not valid: Work-4, Pega-RULES:SysAdmin, "hello", left arrow, A(3)

See Search syntax and stop word list for more information on the phrases and queries you can enter here.
 Search  

Click to perform the search. The system presents the results in a new window, ordered by relevance to the search criteria.

Click any row to open the corresponding data object.

zzz Notes

Stop Words

About 130 stop words occur frequently, including and, the, false, double, this, and pega. Searching for such words produces no hits, unless you enclose the words in double quotes. Typically, these words do not help you find the instances you want as thousands of hits may result. For a list of the stop words, see Search syntax and stop word list.

Internal formats for property values

This facility searches through precomputed indexes of the internal XML text representation of property values, not the representation that appears on the rule form or other user interface facilities. In some cases (including dates, times, non-English values, and others) the internal representation of a property differs from the value typed or selected in the form. For example, the internal representation of January 1, 2006 is 20060101. Searching for the word January does not find objects containing this date.

To review the internal XML representation of a rule or to learn property names, open the rule and click the RuleData toolbar button (RuleData).

Instances of specific classes not searchable

Through the Exclude this class from search check box on the Advanced tab of the Class form, you can exclude the creation and maintenance of search indexes for instances of a class. Typically, this feature is used to disable searches on specific classes of work objects, for security or performance reasons. When configured, search results do not include matches in instances of such classes. See How to enable and control the full text search facility.

UpAbout the Advanced Search tool