Free-Form Searches 

If you need to search by a field that is not a lookup, or if you are not able to find what you want in the main table using drilldown search (or if there simply are no drilldown search tabs for the current table), you may need to resort to a free-form search.

A free-form search allows you to use operators such as contains, starts with, is less than or equal to, and so on, to find matching records (figure below). Also, free-form search does not restrict you to selecting one or more precise values from the list of existing values; you can enter any complete or partial value you wish for a field.

Unlike drilldown search, free-form search can lead you down a dead-end path, since you are permitted to enter values that may not exist rather than being forced by MDM to choose only from a list of existing values.

The Free-Form Search tab contains a grid with three columns:

·        The first column is the row header and lists all the fields in the table, and for each qualified lookup field, all of its cached qualifiers.

·        The second column contains a drop-down list of operators for each field. The set of available operators depends on the field type.

·        The third column contains the values you specify.

The first free-form search entry, Keyword, is not a field; (for more information, see Keyword Search).

The second free-form search entry, Expression, is not a field (for more information, see Expression Search).

Qualifiers that are cached – including non-lookup qualifiers – appear just after the corresponding qualified lookup field. They are indented and enclosed in square brackets ([]).

Fields that are lookups into subtables support both free-form search and drilldown search (for more information, see Combining Free-Form Search with Drilldown Search).