How to use the Search feature in the Contacts DB?

How do I use Search features to filter my Contacts?

You can use Advanced Search features to filter your contacts in your Contacts Database on Tikkl.

You can search by name, city, email, or click on tags to refine the search. You can also search by combining tags using AND (default) or that have either tags using OR.

SEARCH OPERATORS

Contacts search has the capability to search for multiple terms. Search terms can be connected using AND (default) or OR. You can also exclude items from your results using the NOT operator. Search terms are not case-sensitive while search operators are case-sensitive.
Note:  You can use '+' as an alias for 'AND' and '-' as an alias for 'NOT'.

Here is how they work:

1.  AND tells the search engine to look for records that have both of the words connected by “AND” or “+”. For example, you can search of contacts that have both John and Smith.

   > John AND smith
   > john + smith
   Because AND is the default, you can also run this search as:
   > John Smith
   
   

2. OR tells the search engine to look for records that have either of the words connected by “OR”. For example, you can search for contacts that have either John or Jack (but not necessarily both).

   > John OR Jack
   
   

3. NOT tells the search engine to exclude records that have the word directly following “NOT” or “-”. For example, you can search for contacts that have the name John but not the name Smith.

   > John NOT Smith
   > John - Smith
   
   

4. Operators can be combined for a wide range of different search results:

                  > John AND "Los Angeles" OR sunnyvale
                  > John AND Sunnyvale NOT board
                  > John OR Jack NOT Sunnyvale

OPERATOR PRECEDENCE

1. The NOT operator has the highest priority and operates on the term to its right.
2. The OR operator has the next highest priority and operates on the terms both to its left and right.
3. The AND operator has the lowest priority and like, the OR operator, operates on the terms both to its left and right.
4. Examples:

Sunnyvale AND Jack OR John  => Sunnyvale AND (Jack OR John)

Phil OR Don AND “Los Angeles” => (Phil OR Don) AND “Los Angeles”

Jack AND board OR deacon AND Sunnyvale => Jack AND (board OR deacon) AND Sunnyvale

Jack AND NOT Smith OR NOT Jones AND NOT board => Jack AND ((NOT Smith) OR (NOT Jones)) AND (NOT board)

EMPTY OR NULL VALUES

1. You can search for records that have no data in a particular field by using a qualifier (like phone:) and keywords EMPTY, NONE, NIL, NULL, NADA, or ZILTCH.

For example:  Search for all Johns in Sunnyvale whose phone number is empty.

> john sunnyvale phone:EMPTY

1. You can also use the NULL operator in combination with NOT to find records that have unspecified data in a particular field.

For example: Search for all Johns in Sunnyvale whose phone number is empty but has an email address.

> john sunnyvale phone:EMPTY NOT email:NONE 
or,
> john AND sunnyvale + phone:EMPTY - email:EMPTY

SEARCH QUALIFIERS

Search terms are not matched against all contact fields, but based on their format, will look for matches with appropriate fields.

1. A search term will all numerals will be matched against zip, phone, street.
2. Search term with an underscore, @, a dot followed by 2  or 3 characters will attempt to match email address.
3. Mr/Ms/Mrs/Rev/Prof/Dr will attempt to match prefix field of the name.
4. Two upper case characters will attempt to match state field.
5. All others will attempt to match the fields: first name, middle name, last name, company, title, city, and email.
6. It's also possible explicitly qualify a search term to match appropriate fields by adding a prefix to the search term. The prefix is separated from the search term by a ':' (for example, “name:Darrel”). Here's a list of search prefixes and their aliases.
   1. name, n
   2. prefix, pre, pfx
   3. suffix, suf, sfx
   4. first_name, first, fn
   5. middle_name, middle, mn
   6. last_name, last, ln
   7. company, co
   8. title
   9. street, st
   10. street_1, st1
   11. street_2, st2
   12. city
   13. state
   14. country
   15. zip, zip_code, code, postal_code, pc
   16. address, addr, adrs, addrs
   17. phone, p, fax
   18. email e
   19. notes
   20. campaign, camp, cpn
   21. admin
   22. tag, t
7. Examples:
   1. Search for everyone California who are tagged as 'gold-member', but not as 'gold-finger'.

   > CA + tag:gold-member - tag:gold-finger
   
   

   1. Lookup all people in Los Angeles, that participated in year end fundraiser campaign -- fundr07.

   > city:"Los Angeles" + campaign:fundr07
   
   

   1. Lookup everyone in Sunnyvale whose email address is unknown.

   > city:sunnyvale + email:NONE