The simplest way to specify query criteria is to fill in fields and select choices and radio buttons in the Query window that match the ARs you want to find. This is called creating a query-by-example.
When filling in character fields, you need to be aware of the default search style that your AR System administrator specified for the field. The three different search styles are: Equal, Leading, and Anywhere.
The Equal search style means that whatever you enter into the field is searched for exactly. For example, if you enter Bob Smith in the Submitter field you only find all ARs submitted by Bob Smith, but not any submitted by Bob Smithe.
The Leading search style means that whatever you enter into the field is searched for at the beginning of the field with any number of trailing characters. This means that the query will return every AR with this field that contains the first characters exactly as you entered plus any characters that may follow. For example, if you enter Bob in the Submitter field you find all ARs submitted by Bob Smith, as well as those submitted by Bobby Jones.
The Anywhere search style means that whatever you enter into the field is searched for anywhere within the field. For example, if you enter Bob in the Submitter field you find all ARs submitted by Bob Smith, as well as those submitted by Bobby Jones and Jill Bobbington.
Equal and Leading searches are faster than Anywhere searches since Anywhere searches have to compare each character in the field while Equal and Leading searches do not.
You can override your administrator's default search style by entering exactly what you are searching for using relational operators and wild card characters. However, doing this you lose any performance gains that would result from using the Equal or Leading search styles. For more information, see Using Relational Operators in the Query Window and Using Wild Card Symbols.
To find out what search style your AR System administrator specified for a particular character field, display the context sensitive help for that particular field. For more information on context sensitive help, see Displaying Help.
You can perform an unqualified query by first clearing all fields and then querying for all ARs that match anything in every field. This type of query returns all ARs submitted using this schema. While this is useful for some schemas, if the schema contains a large number of ARs, this type of query could overload your server. In this case, your AR System administrator might specify that you can't perform an unqualified query for all schemas on a particular server. If you try to perform an unqualified query on a protected server, you receive an error message informing you that this is not allowed and that you need to specify some query criteria.
For a more precise query, you can specify values for more than one field. The system searches for ARs that meet all of the criteria (a logical AND), so the more fields you fill in the more specific your query becomes.
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