The global search is a very easy-to-use piece of functionality, but behind the scenes it's quite complex. The following will give you a better understanding of how the search works to help you understand how to better utilize it in your day-to-day searches and workflow.
Recently accessed records
How many of you know that clicking the Rex logo gets you a list of recently accessed records (contacts, properties etc) as well as a quick view of upcoming reminders and appointments?
To this day, it still remains a little-known secret – so we’ve gone to a lot of effort to make those records you’ve recently accessed even more visible and easier to discover.
Now, as soon as you click the search bar, your recently accessed records will show up before you start typing.
It doesn’t get much simpler than that.
Locate your own records
If you’re in a closed office where agents might be a bit private about their data, your life just got a whole lot easier.
Imagine you’ve been chatting to a potential buyer – let’s call him John Smith. A few other agents in your office have also been speaking to Mr. Smith about their own listings, and you’ve each got your own contact record detailing recent interactions with him.
Previously, if you wanted to access the contact record you own, you’d probably type John Smith into the search bar and then proceed to open every matching contact record in Rex until you found the right one.
Well – not anymore, friends. Our new search bar takes the mystery out of this lucky dip by showing you who owns each record before you open it.
The Global Search Results Screen
As you can see, you can click 'Show all contacts' (or another record type) to be shown a full list of that results. You can then scroll to the bottom of that list and click on 'View all in a list' - This will show all the records that matched your search result in your module.
Behaviour
When you perform a search via the global search, we search across a large number of record points in the system at once:
Contact Names
When you type the string "Jo" in we search for the following:
- People that have a first name starting with or equal to "Jo"
- People that have a last name starting with or equal to "Jo"
- Company names that start with "Jo"
- Properties with "Jo" starting with or in the name
- Listings with "Jo" starting with or in the name
If you have a person with the name "Peter Jordan" but that name has been entered entirely into the first name field of the contact you may not be able to find the contact by typing "Jordan". To resolve this issue, please split the name up appropriately, or see the "Wildcard Search" section below if you have a lot of 'dirty data'.
Contact Phone Numbers
A phone number search will commence when the system detects that you have entered two or more numbers in a row. Regardless of whether or not you enter an area code, we'll perform two searches:
- The phone number you entered with the area code set on your account
- The phone number you entered with no area code
This allows the system to pick up phone numbers you have entered either with the area code or without the area code. Here are two examples:
- If you entered a person's phone number as "07 3523 4232" the system will pick this up when you perform a search for "3523" OR "07 3523"
- Likewise if you entered a person's phone number as "3523 4232" the phone number will still be picked up if you search for either "3523" or "07 3523"
Contact Email Addresses
An email address search commences the moment the system sees that an "@" symbol has been included in your search string. For example if you enter "alex@", the system will return any matches for any email addresses that start with "alex@".
Street Name
A street name search commences immediately unless the system has detected a phone number search or an email address search.
The system will search for any property or listing that has a street name that starts with the characters you have specified e.g. "Co" or "Coro" might find "Coronation Street".
Full Property Addresses
A full address search commences immediately, unless the system has detected a phone number search or an email address search.
In this case, a full address search refers to the street name and number. For example, "1 Tes" might find a property or listing at "1 Test Street".
Navigate By ID
You can navigate to records using their ID by prefixing your search with a hash (#) symbol. For example, to go to listing ID 31523 you would type #31523. You can retrieve these IDs from the link icon that appears in the record header of each of the main record screens.
Trigger Email Search Early
By default, the global search bar will not begin to search for an email address until it sees the "@" symbol. For example, if you're searching for "john@adams.com" it won't start searching across email addresses until you type the @.
To force the system to immediately start searching for email addresses prefix your search with an @ symbol - for example: "@john". This will force the email address to begin searching immediately and allow you perform searches like "@%adams.com".
Wildcard Search
In order to try and produce the most relevant records, we try and limit your results to matches that are as close as possible. 'Wildcard' searches on the other hand, pull all records that match what you have typed. To perform a 'wildcard search', just add the '%' percent character at the start of the search. For example,' %marcus'.