What Is It?
Transaction Processing Wildcards
DaFIS Transaction Processing provides the ability to use wildcards to assist with many searches. These wildcards can be used to substitute for unknown character strings, to include a range of values, or to exclude specific values.
Note: Nothing will appear on your screen until the entire wildcard has been entered. A dot will appear before the wildcard when it is correctly entered. If this dot is not visible, then the wildcard will not function properly.
Laptops/Computers without a Numeric Pad: Refer to the
FAQ for the necessary keyboard combination to create the wildcard.
Numeric
Pad |
And... |
Results/Purpose |
|---|
 |
  |
Zero or more characters wildcard. Used to fill in for an unlimited number of unknown characters. |
|
 |
Single character wildcard. Used to fill in for exactly one unknown character. |
|
 |
And ( & ) condition. |
|
 |
Or ( | ) condition |
|
 |
Less than ( < ) condition |
|
 |
Greater than ( > ) condition |
|
 |
Equal to ( = ) condition (Note: the = is not shifted) |
|
 |
Not equal to ( ! ) condition |
Name Searches
If you are searching for an employee or a vendor, first select the most unusual portion of the name. Then type that portion of the name with the "zero or more characters" wildcard on both sides. For instance, to find Anna Sammelson, you would type
[+SHIFT8
]SAMMELSON
[+SHIFT8
]. It should look like this on your screen: ·*SAMMELSON·* .
Sometimes when searching for a vendor, you might not be sure of the punctuation or spacing. In this case, you may want to put the "zero or more characters" wildcard in the middle as well. For instance, if you were searching for Amazon.com, you may want to enter ·*AMAZON·*COM·* on the search screen, or if you were searching for Officemax, you may want to enter ·*OFFICE·*MAX·* .
Not Equal To Searches
Let's say you want to find a list of documents you initiated, excluding any documents that were canceled. Enter your search criteria, and then in the document status field type: +SHIFT!C . It should look like this on your screen: ·!C . This will return all documents meeting your criteria EXCEPT those with a document status of C.
Date Range Searches
If you are searching for documents initiated during a specific date range, you would need to use three of the wildcards. On the document search screen in TP, type the following in the DATE field (Do NOT type the
[ ] symbols):
[+SHIFT>
][DATE1
][+SHIFT&
][+SHIFT<
][DATE2
] . Here is an example of what it will look like on your screen:
·>03/31/2001·&·<04/16/2001 .
This example would return all documents initiated starting 4/1/01 through 4/15/01.
