NetResults Tracker Help
Querying Records

The Query page is the section where reports can be generated. You can generate ad-hoc reports, create and run saved reports, create report layouts to choose which fields will be displayed in report results as well as print, export and edit the report results.

The Query page has several sections, each section operates independently of the others (except for the Preview button in the Saved Queries bar which can be used on both saved and advanced saved queries):

To run an ad-hoc query:

  1. Click on the Query icon in the top button bar
  2. Click on the Clear button in Query for Records section to clear out any previously selected query criteria
  3. Select a report layout in the Report Layout pulldown displayed in the Query dialog section (below the Run Query button). The report layout selected determines the fields that will be used in the columns of the report displaying the results of the query.
  4. Select criteria for the ad-hoc query. You can combine any or all of the fields displayed to define a query. Each value is applied to the query as an AND clause, that is, the query will return all records that match all of the specified criteria. Review the Selecting Query Criteria by Field Type section for details about how to select criteria in the different field types as part of the ad-hoc query.
  5. Below the fields where query criteria can be selected, you can use the Sort By and Sort Order options to select which fields to sort by, and choose Ascending or Descending as the sort order for the query results. Link and TextArea type fields cannot be selected for the Sort By options. Please note that when the preference Exclude Time From Reports is enabled and a Date field is selected in the Sort By section, the query results will be sorted by the time in each record even though the results will not include the time information. When PRN (Record ID) is selected for one of the Sort By fields, the records will be ordered according to the numeric component of the PRN (Record ID) field. The short name of the form will not be used as part of the sorting when PRN (Record ID) is selected. For example, let's say you have PRNs "REC1" and "REC2". The sorting will be done using "1" and "2", ignoring the "REC".
  6. If you wish to have a title displayed for this report on the Query Results Page, enter a title in the Report Title field
  7. Click on the Run Query button to run the query
  8. The records that matched the query criteria will be displayed. More detail on the results can be found in the Query Results section.

The Clear button in the Query for Records section can also be used to set the criteria such that the query will return all records. To run a query that returns all records:

  1. Click on the Query icon in the top button bar
  2. Click on the Clear button
  3. Click on the Run Query button
  4. The results page will display all records

A Reset button is available in the Query for Records section, allowing you to restore each query field to the values which were used in the last query that was run. This function is useful if you wish to use a previously executed query as a baseline for further queries.


Selecting Query Criteria by Field Type

Query criteria is entered or selected differently for the various field types available in Tracker.

Full Text Search

A Full Text Search option is available in the sub-section called Search (below the Report Layout field) when running ad-hoc queries. To include a full text search as part of your query criteria, enter a key word(s) or phrase into the for text box. Float, Integer, PRN, Pulldown, URL, Text and TextArea type fields will be displayed in the in field. Also included are the system fields Assigned To, Reported By and Status. Select the fields that you want to include in the search for your key word(s) or phrase. Select the search method you wish to use in the using field. Search Methods

Search Method Examples

Key Word(s) or Phrase entered in Search For field Search Method Results
access denied Any Word The search will return all records which contain the word "access" OR the word "denied".
access denied All Words The search will return all records which contain both "access" AND "denied".
access denied Exact Phrase The search will return all records which contain the string "access denied".
access OR denied Boolean Expression The search will return all records which contain the word "access" OR the word "denied".
access AND denied Boolean Expression The search will return all records which contain the word "access" AND the word "denied".
access + denied Boolean Expression The search will return all records which contain the word "access" AND the word "denied".
access NOT denied Boolean Expression The search will return all records which contain the word "access" but NOT the word "denied".

Dependent Pulldowns

In some cases, your Tracker Administrator may have configured dependent pulldowns in the system. A set of dependent pulldowns is a pair of pulldown menus where one pulldown is the child pulldown field and the other is the parent pulldown field. The option menu items that are displayed in the child pulldown field are determined by the option menu item that is selected for the parent pulldown field. A simple example to illustrate this functionality:

A system has a pulldown called Product with two option menu items "Our Computer" and "Our Printer". A pulldown called Component has the option menu items "Hard Drive", "Video Card", "Toner", and "Paper Tray". The components "Hard Drive" and "Video Card" correspond to the "Our Computer" option menu item in the Product pulldown field. The components "Toner" and "Paper Tray" correspond to the "Our Printer" option menu item in the Product field. When a user selects "Our Computer" for the Product field, only the options "Hard Drive" and "Video Card" will be displayed in the Component field. The Component pulldown (child) is dependent on the Product pulldown (parent).

By default, these relationships between pulldown fields are not enforced when running queries. If you would like these dependencies between pulldown fields to be enforced when you perform queries (including the queries that display your home page reports), change the setting Enforce Dependency in Query Page to be set to Yes in the Preferences section. To do this,

  1. Login to the workgroup
  2. On the Home Page, click on the Preferences link
  3. Scroll down to the "Query Page Pulldown Settings" section. Check the box for the setting Enforce Dependencies
  4. Click OK to save this change.

In some cases, not all of the pulldown fields involved in the dependency chain will be visible on the Query Page. For example, let's say we have the following dependency chain configured:

Pulldown A > Pulldown B > Pulldown C

If Pulldown B is not visible on the Query Page while the "Enforce Dependency in Query Page" option is enabled, Pulldown C will show all possible menu items instead of only those menu items associated with the selection made in Pulldown A.

Obsolete Items

In some cases, your Tracker Administrator may mark some option menu items as obsolete. An obsolete option menu item is a value in a pulldown field that cannot be selected for new records, but may be contained in existing records. When running queries, you may wish to search using obsolete items. If you would like for obsolete option menu items to be available to be used as part of search criteria on the Query Page:

  1. Login to the workgroup
  2. On the Home Page, click on the Preferences link
  3. Scroll down to the "Query Page Pulldown Settings" section. Check the box for the setting Include Obsolete Items
  4. Click OK to save this change.

Examples of Queries

Goal Procedure
Find all records assigned to "Robert Frank". Click on the Clear button. Set the "Assigned To" field to "Robert Frank" and click on the Run Query button.
Find all records for the product "Big Widget" that need to be assigned for testing. Click on the Clear button. Set the "Product" field to "Big Widget" and the "Status" field to "Fixed" and click on the Run Query button.
Locate a record related to random program crashes. Click on the Clear button. Enter "random crash" in the "Description" field and click on the Run Query button.
Locate all records with the word "print" in the Description. Click on the Clear button. Enter "print" in the "Description" field and click on the Run Query button.

Query Results

Once you have run a query, you can view, task, edit or view discussion threads to which you are subscribed for any of the records listed in the query results. You can change the sort order of the Query results at any time by clicking on the field name of the column you wish to sort by. The initial sort order is based on the selections made in the Sort By options of the Query for Records section or in the saved query. The field that is being used as the primary sort field will have an arrow to the right of the field name. If the arrow is pointing down, the results are sorted by that field in a descending order. If the arrow is pointing up, the results are sorted by that field in an ascending order. Clicking once on the field with the arrow will reverse the sort order. Clicking once on any field that does not have the arrow will sort the results in ascending order by that field. Any field except Link and TextArea type fields can be clicked to sort the results by that field.

Please note:

The number of query results displayed per page is based on the value of the field Maximum Records in the Report Settings section of your Preferences page. By default, this is set to display 20 records per page.

Use the page pulldown to go directly to a specific page number.

When the "Assigned To" or "Reported By" fields are displayed in the query results and if you have the privilege that allows you to see user profile information, you can click on the user's name to display their profile details as shown below.

If you have the appropriate privilege, you can click on this icon to view a record in the query results.

If you have the appropriate privilege, you can click on this icon to task a record in the query results.

If you have the appropriate privilege, you can click on this icon to edit the fields, attachments or source code list in a record in the query results.

If you have the appropriate privilege, you can click on this icon to view the discussion threads to which you are subscribed within a record in the query results.

If you have the appropriate privilege, you can click on this icon to view the discussion threads to which you are subscribed with new messages posted within a record in the query results.

The query results can be formatted for printing as a table or text (text will display the full contents of all fields, table format may truncate long fields based on the settings in the Report Layout you used). To print the query results, select "Text" or "Table" and click on the Print link in the upper right corner of the Query Page. If you wish to see a preview before printing, select "Text" or "Table", then click on the Print Preview button. Please note that when the preference Exclude Time From Reports is enabled and a Date field is displayed in the report layout, the time information will not be included (only the date) when print previewing or printing the query results. If you have performed a search within the query results or have applied a filter, only the records you see when you click on the Print link will be included.

The query results can be exported to a *.CSV file (comma separated values format) by clicking on the Export link in the upper right corner of the Query Results page. Please note that when the preference Exclude Time From Reports is enabled and a Date field is displayed in the report layout, the time information will not be included (only the date) when exporting the query results. If you have performed a search within the query results or have applied a filter, only the records you see when you click on the Export link will be included.

Search Within a Set of Query Results

You can do a text search within the fields displayed in a set of query results using the Search Window available above the results. For example, you may wish to search for any records with "print" in the Title as shown in the sample below.

To search within a set of query results:

  1. Enter a key word(s) or phrase into the Search... text box above the query results.
  2. If desired, click on the dropdown icon to select in which fields you wish to search. Selecting "<All>" will search the available fields for the key word(s) or phrase entered (this is the default selection). Or, choose specific fields to be searched. You can select multiple fields by holding down the Ctrl button on your keyboard as you make your selections. Date and Link type fields are not available for selection. If you wish to find a subset of the query results based on a Date field, you can use the range filtering option.

    When searching for a specific PRN, you must enter the full PRN including the short name, if applicable. For example, if you are trying to find the ticket SUP20, entering only "20" will not return this record. You must enter "SUP20" into the Search text box.

    When choosing a Release Number field to search within, the value you enter into the Search text box will be searched within each individual digit of the Release Number field. For example, you can search using values like "1", "Beta 2", etc. Basically, you can search for the items that are configured as choices in the Release Number field. However, you cannot search for a combination of multiple digits at once. For example, if you enter "1.2" into the Search text box in an attempt to find records that have values like "1.2.0.None", "1.2.0.Beta 1", "1.2.1.-", you will get 0 matches because it will search for the value "1.2" within each individual digit of the Release Number.

    You can choose one of the available search methods: "Any Word" (default selection), "All Words", "Exact Phrase", "Boolean Expression". An explanation of each of these methods is available in the Full Text Search section.

  3. Click on the Search icon to run the search. Any matches will be displayed.

You can click on the remove icon to remove the search criteria and reset to the defaults (no key word(s) or phrase in Search text box, "<All>" selected, Search method is "Any Word"). This will display the original set of query results.

If you choose to run another search while a subset of the query results is displayed, the new search will be done against the entire set of original query results. For example, if a query returns 12 matches and you run a text search that returns 5 matches. If you run another search while those 5 matches are displayed, the new search will search against the original 12 matches (not only within the 5 that matched your last search).

If you have applied any filters, the excluded items will not be included in the results of any searches done within the query results.

Apply a Range Filter to a Set of Query Results

Range Filters can be applied to show a subset of the query results. Range Filters are available for Date, Floating Point and Integer type fields. For example, you may wish to see records that were reported within the last week or records that fall into a certain date range. Or, you may wish to see records that have a value that is greater than or less than a certain value in Floating Point or Integer fields. In the sample below, a filter is being applied to show only the records which have a value greater than 0.5 and less than or equal to 2.0 in a Floating point field.

To apply a filter:

  1. Click on the empty filter icon next to the field name in the column heading.
  2. For Date fields, you can specify a date or a date range in the "on or after" and "and before" fields. A date can be typed in or you can click on the calendar icon to select a specific date. Or, you can select a date relative to the current date and time using the "within the" option.

    For Floating point and Integer fields, you can select one of the conditions (<, <=, >, >= and =) and enter a value. You can also specify a range by selecting another condition and entering a value in the "and" option.

  3. Click on the Apply Filter button. The query results will be refreshed to display the items that matched the filter conditions.
To remove a filter:
  1. Click on the full filter icon next to the field name in the column heading.
  2. Click on the Remove Filter button. The query results will be refreshed to reflect the removal of the filter.

Editing or Deleting a Set of Query Results

If you have the appropriate privilege, you may also have the option to edit the set of query results displayed using the Edit Records link in the upper right corner of the Query Results page. The Edit Records option allows you to make changes to all of the records that matched your query in a single edit operation. Please note that using the Edit Records options can make large changes to your database and cannot be undone except by restoring to a backup of your database. As such, it is recommended that you make a backup (or ensure a recent backup is available) of your workgroup database and attachments prior to using this operation.

By default, this option is only available to the Admin user. When using this operation, email notifications are not sent based on the changes that were made to avoid overwhelming the mail server being used by Tracker with a large number of email messages.

To use this operation after running a query, on the page where the query results are displayed, click on the Edit Records link in the upper right corner of the page. The Edit Records link will only be available when one Project and one Form are selected in the query criteria (if you only have access to one Project and one Form, these fields won't be displayed in the criteria and the Edit Records link will be available if you have the appropriate user group privilege). The Edit Records page (also known as the Edit Query Result Set page) will display the fields active in the database. Make changes to the fields you desire, then click OK. Click OK once again to confirm that this will change multiple records and cannot be undone. The image below shows the Edit Records page. If you have performed a search within the query results or have applied a filter, only the records you see when you click on the Edit Records link will be included.

 

The Edit Records page allows you to modify each of the active fields depending on their field type. For each of the different field types that are displayed on the page, you can specify how the field are to be modified by the Edit Query Results Set action.

For the Assigned To field, you have option of selecting the following choices below

For Date Fields, you can select either of the following

For Float fields, the change entered must include a decimal point (for example, "0.0") and it can be positive or negative.

For Integer fields, the change entered must be an integer and can be positive or negative.

For Pulldowns and Release Number fields on the Edit Results page, any non-obsolete option menu item can be selected.

For the Status field, you have the option of selecting one of the following choices.

For Text, you can select either of the following

For TextArea or URL fields, you have option of selecting one of the following choices:

For YesNo fields, you can choose to change the value to "Yes" or "No".

Alerts: The Edit Records operation can also be used to set the Alerts settings for multiple records that matched your query in a single edit operation. If you wish to delete the alerts settings for all records in the query results, select Delete in the Alerts field at the bottom of the page. If you wish to modify the alerts settings for all records in the query results, select Modify... in the Alerts field at the bottom of the page. Please note when selecting Modify..., you will need to click OK to save any other changes you wish to apply to this set of query results before you make changes to the alerts settings. Then, click OK on the confirmation prompt and another page will be displayed where the alerts settings can be changed. To change a particular setting, click on the check box next to the setting. More information on the available settings can be found in the Editing Alerts Settings section. Modify the alerts settings you wish to change, then click OK to save the changes for all records in the query results.

Record Visibility: You can change the record visibility for a set of records using the Edit Records operation. A list of user groups will be displayed in the field Make Visible to These User Groups. If a user group(s) is selected during the Edit Records operation, the records in the query results will be set such that they are visible only to the user group(s) selected. To make a set of records visible to only the Admins user group, click on the blank space at the bottom of the list in the Make Visible to These User Groups field. Changing the visibility for a set of records will eliminate the visibility settings previously in effect for these records.

Permanently Deleting Records: If you have the appropriate privileges and your system has been configured to use "hard" deletes (deletes which permanently purge records from the database), then you may see a Delete Records link in the upper right corner of the query results page. Clicking this link will (after asking for a final confirmation), permanently delete all records that matched the query you just ran. However, entries will be made to Record History for all records deleted in this manner. By default, Tracker is configured to perform only "soft" (recoverable) deletes and only the Administrator is able to perform the Delete Records operation (it requires the same privilege as Edit Records). If you have performed a search within the query results or have applied a filter, only the records you see when you click on the Delete Records link will be included.




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