Drilldown Searches 

Database searches typically require filling in query forms, where you must first specify all of the values for each of the fields you want to match prior to executing the query. If you are familiar with this process, you know that the likelihood is very low of obtaining precisely the records you want the first time. Furthermore, you cannot refine the query after it has been executed; you must return to the query form, enter another set of search criteria, execute the entire query again, and hope for the best.

By contrast, MDM drilldown search is interactive, incremental, and iterative, and provides a much finer level of control and real-time feedback. In particular, drilldown search:

·        Starts with all the products selected.

·        Lets you interactively browse and sort the entire record set.

·        Lists the legal values for each of the search parameters by which you can search, for easy point-and-click selection of one or more values.

·        Does not require that you know in advance what you’re looking for.

·        Allows you to add one constraint at a time to narrow the search.

·        Executes the search immediately as each constraint is added.

·        Allows you to remove constraints to expand the search.

Further, each time you select a value in a drilldown search, MDM immediately does all of the following:

·        Provides a count of the number of records found.

·        Limits the record set to only those that match the constraints.

·        Limits the list of values in every other search dimension.

·        Lets you interactively browse and sort intermediate search results.

·        If the selection was a category field (taxonomy lookup), lists the attributes that apply (are linked to) to that category.

·        If the selection was a qualified lookup field, lists the qualifiers that apply to that qualified table record.

·        For each attribute and qualifier, lists for selection the limited set of attribute and qualifier values based on previous search selections.

For drilldown search, each flat, hierarchy, taxonomy, and qualified lookup field in the current table automatically appears as a search tab in the Search Parameters pane in Record mode, as described in the following sections; each contains the limited set of values for the current result set based on previous search selections.