Searching

The first method of aggregating data is built into the Force Platform: the ability to collect groups of records through searching. Users can search one or more objects for records that contain a particular value.

The results of a search return as a list of records, with the Record Name of each record acting as a link to the actual detail page for the record. This automatic linking is a feature of all the techniques of data collection covered in this chapter. Each technique includes this easy and automatic drill-down capability for accessing the base record. In this way, Force Platform data collection methods and tools are different from standalone reporting tools that normally need additional modification in order to deliver this essential feature.

As with most other default Force Platform features, the best way to learn about the capabilities of the built-in search feature is to simply use it. In order to use search, you need to make it available as part of the user interface, helping you to understand some of the configuration options for the standard user environment.

Adding Search to the Sidebar

You have already seen some of the features of the Sidebar at work, such as the ability to create new objects directly from a button and the list of links to recent items. You have also configured the user interface to allow users to collapse the Sidebar if they want more screen area for the main area for tabs.

You can configure the components available in the Sidebar in a similar manner. The Sidebar is one of the core components of the Force Platform environment, so the contents of the Sidebar are part of the page layout for the Home page of the organization.

1.	Click Setup Customize Home Home Page Layouts to display the existing home page layouts for the organization. The Customize section of the App Setup covers areas of the Force Platform that exist in all organizations, such as standard objects, user interface specifications, home page components and layouts.
2.	Click the Edit link for the home page layout to bring up the page shown in the Home Page layout below. This page allows you to include different components in the “wide” section of the home page, on the right, and the “narrow” section of the home page, which echoes through all the pages as the sidebar. The default choices for the main portion of the Home page are to display tasks, a calendar and a dashboard snapshot. You will create dashboard snapshots later in this chapter. Figure 80. The Home Page layout [View full size image]
3.	Deselect the Calendar and Tasks components and make sure the Items To Approve component is selected in the Select Wide Components to Show section of the page. Since your recruiting application uses approvals, adding items that need approval to the home page is useful to your user community. Right now, you do not really have a need to display tasks or the calendar component, so you do not have to show them in the main portion of the Home page. The default options selected for the Sidebar are Search, Create New button, Messages & Alerts and Custom Links. You can edit both the Messages & Alerts and the Custom Links through the Home Page Components menu choice.
4.	Make sure that the Search checkbox in the Select Narrow Components to Show section of the page is checked and click Next.
5.	Leave the Search component at the top of the Narrow (Left) Column picklist and click Save. You can see that there is also a button marked Save & Assign. Every organization can have more than one Home Page Layout, and you can assign different layouts to different groups of users. Home Page Layouts are assigned to specific user profiles, discussed in detail in Chapter 7: Protecting Your Data on security.

The results of a search are shown in the search layout for the particular object. The Objects attribute page includes a section labeled Search Layouts, where you can modify the page layouts for the results of different types of searches. For the purposes of this book, the Search Results layout has been modified to display more columns than the default of Position ID.

You can add further customizations to the built-in search capabilities of the Force Platform with the Setup Customize Search page, shown below.

Figure 81. The Customize Search page

[View full size image]

Using Search

Adding search to the home page layout adds a search capability to the Sidebar that is displayed with all tabs.

Figure 82. New version of Home Page

[View full size image]

The Sidebar for all your applications now contains a search entry box and a link to advanced search. Force Platform search offers the following options:

• By default, Search looks in all objects, notes and reports. Advanced search also searches in descriptions and comments. You select an individual object in the Sidebar search, if you enable this option through the Customize Search page, or multiple objects in the advanced search page.

• The Sidebar search uses the characters entered as the initial characters in a text string, as if a wild card were appended. In advanced search, you use the * wildcard, following the initial string, to indicate any number of characters, or the ? wildcard, following the initial string, to indicate a single character.

• Search only looks in text fields.

Advanced search offers a little more flexibility, as shown in the figure below.

Figure 83. Advanced Search page

[View full size image]

The search text box in the Advanced Search page also accepts logical syntax, such as AND, OR and NOT AND, as well as allowing exact search matches for multiple words by surrounding the words with quotation marks.

There are other search capabilities in different areas of your Force Platform application, such as the search dialogs that look for related records. Searching for lookup values includes a couple of features that can make the search more useful and user friendly. As soon as the user enters more than three characters in the search box at the top of the page, the Force Platform attempts to automatically complete the search term by looking at the most recently used items for a match. This feature, turned on by default after the Spring 08 release, can help guide users to the best choice for a lookup value. In addition, users can customize the columns that appear in the search lookup themselves.

Once a set of records has been returned from a search, a user can specify filters to further limit the records in the set.

Voice of the Developer

This section has focused on how users can find records through the Search feature. There are several ways in a Force Platform standard application that allow users to view lists or records, as well as filter those lists. Users can also use views to display objects from a particular object. When users click on a custom object tab they are taken to the view of that object. All objects have a default view, but you can also create custom views, which allow a user to specify selection criteria and what fields are displayed in the view. You can also create a Visualforce page with similar features, which is described in Chapter 9: Visualforce Pages.