Using FastFind to Search the Document Management System

FastFind – Provides search capability from third party windows based forms applications such as accounting or GIS. Users create hotkey shortcuts that perform searches directly from the chosen application in the FileHold document management system to find relevant data instantly.

FastFind is relatively easy to set up and use by most users with some basic instructions; however, FastFind can be leveraged to perform a more dynamic search of the document management system by someone who can work with regular expressions.

Note: FastFind must be enabled before the feature will work. 

Enabling FastFind

FastFind is a user enabled search tool that can be used to extend the search capabilities of FileHold to 3rd party applications.

To enable FastFind go to File > Preferences and Settings > FastFind Preferences > Enable FastFind. Click Apply > OK.

Users may also choose to have FastFind templates updated when they log onto the document management system.

They may also enable the use of the predefined FastFind hotkey templates.

• Mouse search
• Selection seach
• Clipboard search

New templates will also appear here as they are created and will also need to be individually enabled.

Predefined HotKeys

Mouse Search (Alt + S) - activates an on-the-fly screen scraper. When this is done a green bar appears in the bottom-left corner of the user’s desktop screen. Users can now start moving their mouse over screen form objects such as data fields or field labels. The text under the current mouse position is captured and displayed in the green bar. If a user wishes to search with the captured text they may left click to invoke the FileHold search. This initiates the FTS+Metadata search in FileHold and the search results are displayed within FileHold’s standard search results screen. Pressing the ESC button at any time will stop the mouse search mode.

Clipboard Search (Alt + C) - Users can copy any text from the screen to the Windows clipboard using traditional “Copy” menu option or the Ctl+C shortcut available in most Windows applications and then by pressing the Alt+C combination they can activate the FTS+Metadata search in FileHold and the search results are displayed within FileHold on the standard search results screen.

Since FastFind uses the contents of the clipboard any string displayed on the screen which can be copied to the clipboard (similarly to when using the well known Cut/Past sequence in Windows) can be used as the search criteria including partial highlights of the text strings.

Selection Search (Ctrl + D) - Selection Search is similar to the Clipboard Search (and in fact is using Clipboard Search as its internal mechanism), however, it uses a one step process to initiate the search after a user highlights their selection on a business application form or as a part of the content of a document opened in a 3rd part application. Invoking Ctl+D is all that is needed to initiate search and display results within FileHold application.

Changing the Hotkeys

You can change the predefined hotkeys to a different shortcut key.

To change the shortcut key

1. Click the hotkey type you want to change (mouse search, selection search, or clipboard search).
2. In the Change Shortcut screen, change the default keyboard combination and click OK. For example you can change the mouse search shortcut to Shift + F3 instead of using Alt+S.

Creating Templates

Once FastFind is enabled and the template created, users can search the FileHold document management system from the supported application with "one click" of a hotkey. This allows users to quickly locate and access information related to the file they are working on without opening up the document management system or closing the application that they are working with.
Once FastFind has been enabled the next step is to open the FastFind template builder. From the FDA of the document management system, click on Tools > FastFind Templates > Add Template.

You will be asked to “Activate the window you want the FastFind Template to be associated with and press Alt+N.”

Note: In order to create a template you must have the application that you wish to search from open.

Click on the window that contains the application you will be searching from. A “snapshot” of the application will now appear in the FastFind wizard and will allow you to select the source and the rules that will be invoked when a FastFind search is launched from this form.

Applying Rules and Sources to the FastFind Template

The source is the field on the form from which the search is to be launched. It is typically a set field like Customer/Client Name or Customer Number, Invoice Number, etc… When setting up the source the user will be asked to select the hotkeys that will initiate the search. Although templates can have multiple sources, each source must have its own hotkey assigned.
The rules tell the system where to locate the search terms. Rules can be dynamic, have a fixed position or have a fixed position and size.

Note: If you use dynamic position, Match Text must also be used.

Each template can have multiple sources and all templates should have multiple rules in order to ensure a good search. For example in an invoice form, sources could be set for the fields, Customer Name, Customer Number, Amount Owed, Date Billed and Due Date while the rules mark off the areas like the header, body, footer and menu areas of the form to search.

It is a good rule of thumb to have 4-6 rules per template to ensure the search works well.

Once the rules and sources are set the FastFind template should be saved.

Remember: you must go back to FastFind Preferences under File > Preferences and enable the template after it is created.

Editing Templates

Templates, sources and rules can be edited and deleted after they are created by going to Tools > FastFind Templates.

Once the box is open click on the template you wish to edit. The template will open in the Edit FastFind Template window.

Searching the System Using FastFind

Once the templates have been created and enabled searching for documents related to the defined sources is literally as easy as hitting two keys.

Open the document that has templates associated with it and hit the appropriate hotkeys. The FileHold document management system will open in the search results window view with all relevant files (that the users has permissions to access) will be listed.

The user can then extract the needed information. Users can also use the search features inside of the document management system if they need to filter the results.

"Cheat Sheet” of the Created Hotkey Shortcuts

To get a list of the hotkeys shortcuts Click on Tools > FastFind Templates > Shortcut Summary.

This will open a list of all the hotkeys that have been created. The list can be printed.