Properties (Additional Conditions)

Each object has property values that are assigned to it in the metadata card. These property values can be used to search for documents in a precise manner. A document property can be for example Project, and the value of this project can be Hospital Expansion (Florida). If you perform an advanced search with these values, the search returns all documents for which Hospital Expansion (Florida) has been defined as the value of the Project property.

Properties

A property can be an object property or an Item from a list selection. Item from a list selections affect all property definitions that have been defined using the selected value list. For example, if you have installed M-Files for evaluation, the properties Buyer and Supplier in the demo vault are both defined using the value list Customers. If you now select Item from list 'Customers' as a search criterion, the search returns all documents where the Buyer or Supplier property has the value that was searched for. If, on the other hand, your search criterion is, for example, the Buyer property only, the M-Files search is limited to the Buyer property of documents.

The properties tab of the additional search conditions dialog.

Operators

In the Operator field, you can determine criteria other than equal to. See the table below for the list of available operators.

=	Equal to
!=	Unequal to
>	Greater than This operator is useful when the value to be selected contains numbers. You can easily find all values that are greater than the value you have specified. For example, if your document vault contains the data type of the Department property as numbers, the search criterion > 10 returns the documents whose Department value is greater than 10.
>=	Greater than or equal to
<	Less than
<=	Less than or equal to
One of	You can select some property values for the search, for instance certain projects but not all of them. In this case, the search results are just the documents whose Project property has one of the values you selected with the One of operator. For example, the Project property of the document Window Chart E12.dwg is "Hospital Expansion (Florida)".
Not one of	This search option is the opposite of the previous one.
Contains	When you want to search for documents by letter combination, for instance a word, you can use the Contains operator. For example, if you want to find all documents in the Demo Vault whose Project property value contains the letters pan, the search results include the document Window Chart E12.dwg, whose Project property is "Hospital Expansion (Florida)". The word Expansion contains the letters pan that were determined as the search criterion.
Does not contain	This search option is the opposite of the previous one.
Starts with	The Starts with option works in almost the same way as the Contains option. Here, the word must start with the value specified.
Does not start with	This search option is the opposite of the previous one.
Matches wildcard pattern	The matches wildcard pattern option can be used with the wildcards `?` and ``. The `?` character replaces any single character, and the `` character replaces any number of characters. For example, if you want to find documents whose Project property value starts with the string Web Site followed by any number of any characters and ends with the string ESTT, you would select the Project property and specify `web site * estt` as the search string for the matches wildcard pattern operator. The Project property value of documents returned by this search could be, for example, Web Site Graphics for ESTT or Web Site Design for ESTT. Note: Wildcard characters cannot be used as the first character in a search term.
Does not match wildcard pattern	This search option is the opposite of the previous one.
Is empty	In some cases, the properties of a document have no value. This happens when no value is specified for the property at the stage of filling in the metadata card – e.g., when no value has been specified for the Project property. The Is empty operator utilizes the missing value in the search. For example, you can easily find all documents whose Project property has no value.
Is not empty	This search option is the opposite of the previous one.

Values

From the Value column, you select the value for the selected property that is used as the search criterion. You can filter the list of available values by selecting the Filter option and entering a suitable filter word in the Set Filter to List dialog.

Note: You can select multiple values by holding down the CTRL key.

Selecting properties for the search filter.

When you search for Projects with the Matches wildcard pattern operator (????house*), one of the documents returned from the Demo Vault is the document Functional Specification.doc, whose Project property has the value Warehouse Management System Development. The word Warehouse begins with any four character string, followed by the word house and then any character string.

Utilizing the"Matches wildcard pattern" operator.

If a property definition based on a hierarchical value list is selected as the search criterion, you can also select whether to include the values higher and lower in the hierarchy in the search.

Options

If your search criteria includes a property containing a timestamp, you can make the search more specific by selecting an option from the Options column, selecting an operator, and entering a suitable value in the Value field. For example, you can find all recently created documents. Give "Created < 7" as your search criterion, and select the option DaysFrom(). The search will return all documents created over the last seven days. See the table below for the list of available options for timestamp properties and their descriptions.

Option	Example	Description
Date()	Created = 18.12.2015	Returns objects that have a given timestamp property containing a given date.
DaysFrom()	Created < 7	Returns objects with a given timestamp property containing a date within a given number of days preceding the current date.
DaysTo()	Effective through < 10	Returns objects with a given timestamp property containing a date within a given number of days following the current date.
Month()	Created = 05	Returns objects that have a given timestamp property containing a date with a given month. Use the format MM.
Year()	Document date = 2015	Returns objects that have a given timestamp property containing a date with a given year. Use the format YYYY.
YearAndMonth()	Created = 2015-12	Returns objects that have a given timestamp property containing a date with a given year and month. Use the format YYYY-MM.

Utilizing options for properties of the timestamp data type.

Also refer to Subordination of search criteria and Indirect searches under Advanced Search. You can always utilize indirectness for specifying the properties in filter settings.

Example: Searching for Ongoing Projects for American Customers

Steps

Click Advanced Search on the right side of the search bar to bring up the advanced search options.
Click Additional Conditions...
The Additional Conditions dialog is opened.
Go to the Properties tab and click Add Condition to add a property condition.
From the topmost Property drop-down menu, select In progress.
From the topmost Operator drop-down menu, select =.
From the topmost Value drop-down menu, select Yes.
Click Add Condition again to add another property condition.
Locate Customer in the next Property drop-down menu and click the plus sign next to Customer to expand its properties and select the Country customer property.
This creates an indirect property association that uses the Country property of the customer object to define a country for the project. As the project object does not include country data in this case, the customer object can be used indirectly to provide it.
From the Operator drop-down menu, select =.
From the Value drop-down menu, select USA.
The Additional Conditions dialog should now look like this:
Click OK to close the Additional Conditions dialog.
Enter a search term in the Quick Search field or leave it empty if you do not want to filter your search any further.
Press Enter or click the arrow button next the Quick Search field to start your search.

Results

The search results show the projects (for the search term or all the projects if no search term was given) that are in progress for customers from the United States.