Contacts and Businesses - Searching for Contacts and Businesses

In this topic:

• Overview
• Quick Search

• Advanced Search
• Contact & Business List

• Other Ways to Find Contacts/Businesses Finding Contacts with a Matching Profile
• Finding Recently Active Records

Overview

The primary way to access contacts and businesses is to use the contact/business search feature of SmartOffice. Quick and advanced search methods are available.

Note: During a search, if the user is unable to find records that are known to be stored in the system, those records may be hidden from that user because of security settings configured by the administrator. For more information, see Office Security.

Quick Search

This is a fast method for finding a contact or business by name, or for displaying all contacts in the database.

• In the SmartOffice Search box, select People & Companies from the drop-down list, and then select Contact, Business or Contact/Business.

• Do one of the following: Enter the name of the contact or business in the search field. For people, use the last name, first name format (a contact's greeting can be used instead of the first name, and a maiden name can be used instead of the last name). Partial names are allowed. During text entry, SmartOffice displays a dynamic menu containing matches. If the dynamic menu displays the name of the contact or business, select the name to immediately open the corresponding record.
• To display all contacts in the system (i.e., perform a "blank" search), leave the search field blank. Note: If the database contains a large number of contacts, a blank search may take a long time to complete. To prevent that, enter at least the first letter of the contact's or business's name. Also, users who have Enterprise View enabled cannot perform blank searches.

• Click the Search button to display the search results.

Tip: If you select the Business option in the Search box, you can search for business abbreviations in addition to business names. You must enter at least three characters to activate the business abbreviation search.

Advanced Search

This method enables the user to search using many criteria in addition to the contact or business name.

• Do one of the following: In the SmartOffice Search box, click the drop-down list, point to People & Companies and select Contact, Business or Contact/Business. Then click the Advanced hyperlink.

• In the SmartOffice side menu, click People & Companies and then select Contacts/Businesses.

Either action opens the search dialog box.

Note: If the contact is listed in the Recently Visited section, click the contact's name.

• In the Search Options section, select the search type (Contacts, Businesses or Both Contacts and Businesses). Selecting either the Contacts or Businesses option provides additional search options specific to that record type.
• Do one of the following: To display all contacts in the system (i.e., perform a "blank" search), leave all fields blank.

Note: If the database contains a large number of contacts, a blank search may take a long time to complete. To prevent that, enter at least the first letter of the contact's or business' name.

• To limit the search results, enter search criteria into one or more fields. These fields correspond to the fields in contact and business records; for descriptions, see Viewing and Editing Contacts and Businesses. The fields are not case-sensitive, and partial entries (e.g., partial name, address, phone number, policy number, Social Security Number, etc.) are allowed. When entering a person's name, use the Last Name, First Name format.

• (Optional) In the Include These Contact/Business Types section, which displays only when the Contacts or Businesses option is selected in the Search Options section, select or clear one or more subsystem types to expand or limit the search to those types.
• (Optional) If searching for contacts only or businesses only, the user can limit the number of results further by clicking the Filter and/or Set hyperlink to select a filter or set.

• Click the Search button.

Contact & Business List

Depending on the type of search conducted, the search results display in one of the following lists:

• Contact & Business List
• Contact List

• Business List

Note: If the search returns only one result, SmartOffice bypasses the list and automatically displays the contact Personal content link or business Detail content link.

The list's default column layout can be modified (see Lists - Customizing Columns). Many of the columns correspond to fields that appear by default in contact or business records; for descriptions of these fields, see Viewing and Editing Contacts and Businesses. Other columns do not appear as record fields by default but are nevertheless useful, such as:

• Days Since Last Contact: The number of days since a SmartOffice user last interacted with the contact. An interaction can be print or e-mail correspondence addressed to the contact (either drafted or sent), or a calendar activity or task linked to the contact that has been marked Done. Note that this value is updated overnight; any interactions that occur on the current day are not reflected until the next day.

• Last Contact: The date and time of the most recent interaction a SmartOffice user had with the contact. An interaction can be print or e-mail correspondence addressed to the contact (either drafted or sent), or a calendar activity or task linked to the contact that has been marked Done. Note that this value is updated overnight; any interactions that occur on the current day are not reflected until the next day.

Clicking a contact or business name in the list opens that record. The information stored in contact and business records is described in Viewing and Editing Contacts and Businesses.

To quickly preview a contact or business without opening it, position the mouse pointer over the contact or business name to display its information card.

For more information about working with lists in SmartOffice, see Lists.

Other Ways to Find Contacts/Businesses

Finding Contacts with a Matching Profile

The user can quickly find records that share one or more identical characteristics with a particular contact or business record.

For example, the user can search for contacts with the same date of birth, employer, review date and communication privacy settings as the selected contact.

• Search for a contact or business to use as a starting point.
• Select the contact/business from the list of results or open the contact/business record.

• Select Menu > Advanced Options > Find Contacts with Matching Profile to open the Matching Profile List dialog box.
• Click a profile in the Profile Name list to display a list of matching contacts.

If the Profile Name list does not contain a suitable profile, follow these steps to create a profile:

• In the Matching Profile List dialog box, select Menu > New 'MatchProfileModule' record. The Matching Profile Setup dialog box opens.
• Enter a name for the profile in the Profile Name field.

• Select the appropriate table and column, and then click the right-arrow button to add the column to the Columns Selected list. This process of column selection is similar to that performed while customizing a list layout.

• Click the Save button.

Finding Recently Active Records

As an alternative to using the History tab in the SmartOffice side menu, the user can quickly access recently opened contact and business records using the Last Active Record feature.

From the side menu, select People & Companies > Last Active Record to open the Last Active Contacts/Businesses dialog box.

From this dialog box, the user can do the following:

• Click the column headings to change the sort order of the records listed.
• Tag one or more records, and then click the OK button to display them. When multiple records are tagged, the records display in a standard SmartOffice list.

• Tag one or more records, and then select Menu > Clear to remove records from the list. Note that this clears the records from the Last Active Contacts/Businesses dialog box only; the records are not deleted from SmartOffice.