Types of search

If two or more terms are entered on the same line in a field, the Boolean operator AND applies:

In this example, records containing both rock and roll anywhere, and in any order, in the Notes field will be found.

Tip: You are not limited to two search terms in an AND search, i.e. you could enter rock roll music and all three terms would need to be present in the Notes field.

If two or more terms are entered on different lines in a field, the Boolean operator OR applies:

A record will be returned as long as it contains at least one of the words, rock or roll in this example.

Tip: You are not limited to two search terms in an OR search; simply add a search term to another row.

The Boolean operator NOT is specified by placing an exclamation mark ! before a search term. The NOT operator excludes records that have the next term in the search field:

Vitalware 2.5 and earlier	Vitalware 3.0 onwards	Description
!rock	\!rock	Return records that do not include the word rock in the search field.
!rock roll	\!rock roll	This search will return records that contain the word roll in the search field but only if the word rock does not also appear in the field. Records that mention sausage roll in the search field will be returned; records that mention rock and roll in the search field will not be returned.

NOT and NULL (an empty field)

It is important to be aware that a NOT search will not return a record where the search field is empty (has no value), even though logically an empty field does not contain the excluded term:

A phrase is one or more words adjacent to each other, e.g. business systems. In a Phrase search, quotation marks are used to define the phrase.

A Phrase search returns records that contain the search terms in the order in which they appear between the quotation marks:

Vitalware 2.5 and earlier	Vitalware 3.0 onwards	Search results
"business systems"	\"business systems\"	Records with the phrase business systems will be returned. A Phrase search is more precise than a Boolean AND search in which the words can appear anywhere and in any order in the search field. For example, an AND search for business systems would return a record containing this sentence "The business has many systems". Our example Phrase search would not.
"sacré cœur"	\"sacre-coeur\"	A phrase search is not sensitive to case or diacritics. For instance, in the first example, records with business systems, Business systems or Business Systems will be returned. In this example, records containing the phrase Sacré-Cœur would be returned. Tip: See Case Sensitivity & Diacritics below for details about making a Phrase search case sensitive and (in Vitalware 3.0 onwards) diacritics sensitive.

With stemming it is possible to find records that contain variations / derivatives of a search term (e.g. plural, adjectival, conjugation, etc.). Stemming is specified by placing a ~ (tilde) directly before the search term:

Vitalware 2.5 and earlier	Vitalware 3.0 onwards	Search results
~system	\~system	system, systems, systematic, systematics, systemless, systematically, systematise, systemic, systemise
~view	\~view	view, viewer, viewing, viewable, viewership, viewfinder, viewgraph, viewless, viewpoint
~bracket	\~bracket	bracket, bracketed, bracketing

A Phonetic search returns records that contain terms that sound like the search term. A Phonetic search uses the @ symbol:

Vitalware 2.5 and earlier	Vitalware 3.0 onwards	Search results
@krystal	\@krystal	crystal, krystal
@color	\@color	colour, color
@smith	\@smith	smith, smyth, smythe

Text searches are not case sensitive by default. A search for business will return records with the word business or Business, for instance.

To make a text search case sensitive, use an equals sign = before the search term:

Vitalware 2.5 and earlier	Vitalware 3.0 onwards	Search results
=Business	\=Business	This search will return records which contain Business but not business.
="Business system"	\=\"Business system\"	This search combines a case sensitive search with a Phrase search and will return Business system but not business system.

As text searches are case insensitive by default, there is rarely a need to specify that a search is case insensitive. A situation in which it would be useful is where we specify a case sensitive Phrase search but want a word in the phrase to be case insensitive. We use & to specify case insensitivity:

Vitalware 2.5 and earlier	Vitalware 3.0 onwards	Search results
="This is about our Business &Systems"	\=\"This is about our Business \&Systems\"	This search would locate This is about our Business Systems or This is about our Business systems.

Wildcard	Use	Search results
*	Substitutes zero or more characters at its position in a search term. Tip: To return all records with something in the search field, that is, all non-empty fields , enter * in the search field.	appl* will match words beginning with appl, e.g. apple, application, applied, etc. edit* will match words beginning with edit, e.g. edit, edits, edited, etc.
?	Substitutes for any single character at its position in a search term.	appl? will match apply and apple (but not apples). organi?e will match organise and organize.
^	Place at the beginning of a search term to specify that the term must display at the start of the field.	^Hospital will match Hospital for Patriots, and Hospital for Abandoned Animals (but not Patriots Hospital or Chicago Hospital).
$	Place at the end of a search term to specify that the term must display at the end of the field.	Organi?ation$ will match Funeral Directors Organisation and Funeral Directors Organization (but not Organization of Funeral Directors).
[any one of]	Matches only one of a sequence of characters specified in any one of. any one of may consist of individual characters or a beginning and end character in a range may be specified separated by a minus sign (e.g. a-z).	Organi[sz]ation will match Organisation and Organization. [0-9] will match any number between 0 and 9.
{one or more of}	Matches one or more of a sequence of characters specified in one or more of. one or more of may consist of individual characters or a beginning and end character in a range may be specified separated by a minus sign (e.g. 0-9).	Organi{sz}ation will match Organisation, Organization and (in the event of a typo) Organiszation.

Wildcard	Use	Search results
\*	Substitutes zero or more characters at its position in a search term. Tip: To return all records with something in the search field, that is, all non-empty fields , enter \* in the search field.	appl\* will match words beginning with appl, e.g. apple, application, applied, etc. edit\* will match words beginning with edit, e.g. edit, edits, edited, etc.
\?	Substitutes for any single character at its position in a search term.	appl\? will match apply and apple (but not apples). organi\?e will match organise and organize.
\^	Place at the beginning of a search term to specify that the term must display at the start of the field.	\^Hospital will match Hospital for Patriots, and Hospital for Abandoned Animals (but not Patriots Hospital or Chicago Hospital).
\$	Place at the end of a search term to specify that the term must display at the end of the field.	Organi\?ation\$ will match Funeral Directors Organisation and Funeral Directors Organization (but not Organization of Funeral Directors).
[\any one of\]	Matches only one of a sequence of characters specified in any one of. any one of may consist of individual characters or a beginning and end character in a range may be specified separated by a minus sign (e.g. a-z).	Organi\[sz\]ation will match Organisation and Organization. \[0-9\] will match any number between 0 and 9.
\{one or more of\}	Matches one or more of a sequence of characters specified in one or more of. one or more of may consist of individual characters or a beginning and end character in a range may be specified separated by a minus sign (e.g. 0-9).	Organi\{sz\}ation will match Organisation, Organization and (in the event of a typo) Organiszation.

Operator	Description	Example
>	Finds records greater than the specified date or number.	>"2 Apr 1999" will find records after 2 April 1999. >890 will find records greater than 890.
<	Finds records less than the specified date or number.	<"2 Apr 1999" will find records before 2 April 1999. <890 will find records less than 890.
>=	Finds records greater than or equal to the specified date or number.	>="2 Apr 1999" will find records after or from 2 April 1999. >=890 will find records greater than or equal to 890. Note: For reasons explained below in A warning about partial range searches, it is best to avoid the use of >= in a partial range search (i.e. with an incomplete date ).
<=	Finds records less than or equal to the specified date or number.	<="2 Apr 1999" will find records before or equal to 2 April 1999. <=890 will find records less than or equal to 890. Note: For reasons explained below in A warning about partial range searches, it is best to avoid the use of <= in a partial range search (i.e. with an incomplete date ).

Operator	Description	Example
>	Finds records greater than the specified date or number.	>\"2 Apr 1999\" will find records after 2 April 1999. >890 will find records greater than 890.
<	Finds records less than the specified date or number.	<\"2 Apr 1999\" will find records before 2 April 1999. <890 will find records less than 890.
>=	Finds records greater than or equal to the specified date or number.	>=\"2 Apr 1999\" will find records after or from 2 April 1999. >=890 will find records greater than or equal to 890. Note: For reasons explained below in A warning about partial range searches, it is best to avoid the use of >= in a partial range search (i.e. with an incomplete date ).
<=	Finds records less than or equal to the specified date or number.	<=\"2 Apr 1999\" will find records before or equal to 2 April 1999. <=890 will find records less than or equal to 890. Note: For reasons explained below in A warning about partial range searches, it is best to avoid the use of <= in a partial range search (i.e. with an incomplete date ).

When performing a partial range search, it is important to avoid use of = with the relational operators (< or >).

Consider this query using a partial date:

AdmDateModified >= 2012

There are effectively two requests here:

1. Locate records with a date that is greater than 2012.
2. Locate records that equal 2012.

The first search will return all records where AdmDateModified is from 1 January 2013, which is as expected.

However, the second part will always return no matches. A date recorded in Vitalware comprises three parts (day/month/year), but some parts of the date in our search term are not unknown - in this case the day and month are technically NULL (although it might be easier to understand NULL as UNKNOWN). What we intend by our search is that any record with a year of 2012 is returned, but when we use the equals modifier (=) we're actually requesting that the date recorded in AdmDateModified exactly matches NULL/NULL/2012 (or UNKNOWN/UNKNOWN/2012). This will of course match nothing.

The solution is fairly simple, of course:

• Vitalware 2.5 and earlier:
  AdmDateModified >= "1 January 2012"
• Vitalware 3.0 onwards:
  AdmDateModified >= \"1 January 2012\"

This will return all records with a year of 2012 and beyond.

You wish to find an organization that specializes in the treatment of cardiovascular disease in adults. You know that a note was added to the Notes tab describing the organization's speciality. You type cardiovascular and adult* in the Notes field and run a search. The following record is one of the matches:

Even though the two terms do display in the same record, they are unrelated.

To further refine the search, you now run a proximity search. This search specifies that two terms must display within five words of each other:

• Vitalware 2.5 and earlier:
  '(cardiovascular adult*) <= 5'
• Vitalware 3.0 onwards:
  \'\(cardiovascular adult\*\) <= 5\'

This time the above record is not found because the search terms are too far apart. However, this search does find the following record because the two terms display within five words of each other. The probability that this record is on the subject of cardiovascular disease and adults is much higher, and indeed this is correct: