Info Center/searching for Project data

[20/20_Vision]

A follow-up question to my previous one...I’m using Vision 5.1 and need to perform a search that returns records for present projects my company is working on. The categories I need to search for are “Name and Location of Project,” “Description of Services Rendered,” Name/Address of Owner,” “Estimated Cost,” and “Firm Associated with” (the latter is for projects where we collaborated with another company).

I also need to generate additional searches for current projects in which my company collaborated with others, as well as projects in which we collaborated with others during the past five years (not including current projects).

I’m in Info Center/Projects, and am guessing that such a search would be generated from this screen and some combo of its tabs. Thanks for any advice.

[Karen Sigel]

A little clarification: Do you need to search all of these categories in combination, or are you searching one or two of them and then you need to show the data from the others when you print your results?

[20/20_Vision]

Hi (again) Karen, The second option. This is for a large prequal renewal I'm doing, and the state (Massachusetts) requires different categories of projects (that's where the Excel spreadsheet comes in). I need to call up the data in Vision (however I do that is fine, just as long as I get the correct info). Then, it's the Excel spreadsheet that has the categories/headings I mentioned. Thanks.

[dews]

Anyone,

I'm at my last step to show how to make a query in the Proposal module, or for that matter CRM, because any informtaion will be found either way. I've been asked to show how a project can be queried. I presume that simple searches aren't anything more than a search, but can a queried be designed to show projects only from, let's say, our Northeast Division and then filtered for the project number or cost?

If so, please give me insight. We have the Proposal module, but I don't have access to it yet and I am trying to instruct others on query searches, and how they might be accomplished.

Thank you in advance for your help. Feel free to call me.

Sincerely,
Deborah Dewey

[Karen Sigel]

Deborah-

You don't need access to the Proposals module to query a project, and you certainly can query according to the criteria you mentioned - assuming the relavant data exists in your project records. Here are the instructions I give our personnel on how to search:

The search dialog can be found at the top right of the Vision window and consists of a quick-find entry field and a binoculars icon.

Try to search using the fewest possible specifically identifying characters: “communic” will return communicate, communicates, communication, and communications, any or all of which might be helpful.

If you know the exact name or number of the item you are searching for, the quick-find entry search is the fastest, easiest way to locate it.

Use the binoculars to access the search dialog in order to get the most accurate and wide-ranging search, especially if you only know a part of the name of a project/opportunity.

A Standard search consists of one field limitation. Choose the field you want to search in the Search By dropdown and enter text to use as the search parameter in the Search Text field, then click Search. Not every field is available in a Standard search; if the field you need isn't in the dropdown, use Advanced Search.

An Advanced search allows you to restrict data by more fields and/or by multiple fields. Advanced searches can help you avoid looking at information that is not useful such as projects that are too old or of a different type. Access Advanced Search by clicking on the Display Type dropdown in the Standard search dialog box.

Advanced searches are governed by a series of Fields, Operators, and Criteria (the columns in the Advanced Searching grid), such as
Field: Project Long Name;
Operator: contains;
Criteria: Columbia

The other component to the Advanced Search is the Condition AND/OR.

For instance, a search where the Project Long Name: contains: Columbia AND Project Type: not equal: Wastewater, would give you only projects that had the word Columbia in the name but were not wastewater projects.

You might also perform a search that said something like Project Long Name contains PSU OR Project Long Name contains Penn State OR Project Long Name contains Pennsylvania State University. This would give you projects with any of PSU, Penn State, or Pennsylvania State University in the title, thus cutting down on the number of searches you have to perform to retrieve all appropriate results.

Any field in the drop down can be searched, assuming the corresponding data exists in the project record. So you could search (using your examples) for

Division: equal: Northeast AND
Project Cost: between: 500000;1000000

to find projects in the Northeast Division with project costs between $500,000 and $1,000,000. Again, any field in the project resord can be searched, if there's data available and you query for that data in the correct format (searching number fields using text won't work, in other words).

I hope this helps. As always, you can get context help from Vision by clicking the closest "Help" button to whateer you're trying to do. Sometimes the help is more helpful than other times, though!