Tech Tip: Using Advanced Search to Locate Missing Documents

Many companies have specific required documents that must be saved in a certain repository, such as employment contracts for every employee or manifests for a shipment. Locating missing documents of a specific type can be a time-consuming challenge when users have to double-check folders and verify that the correct documents are on file.

Laserfiche advanced search simplifies this process by supporting searches for documents that are present in a folder as well as missing documents. Users can locate missing documents using the ChildName advanced search type, which allows users to locate all folders that contain documents with a particular name. Combining this search with the NOT operator (-) allows users to find all folders that do not contain documents of a particular name. Users can combine this with any other search to return folders that meet particular criteria but that do not contain a document with the specified name.

 

 Example 1: Patient Records

 

A hospital keeps all of information about patients in a Patients folder with subfolders for each patient by name. Within each patient’s folder is a folder called “Forms.” Each patient should have a signed record that they received a Notice of Privacy Practices on file in their “Forms” folder. The notifications are titled first with the date and then with the words “Notice of Privacy Practices.”  (i.e. “2008-02-28 Notice of Privacy Practices.”) T

The following search would locate each “Forms” folder in the repository that does not contain a document with the words “Notice of Privacy Practices” in the title, allowing a user to quickly determine which patient folders are mossing the document:

{LF:Name=”Forms”, Type=”F”} – {LF:ChildName=”*Notice of Privacy Practices*”}


 Example 2: Member Information

 

A gym keeps all of member information in individual member folders named after the members. These folders all have the “Member Information” template.

Each member should have a document called “Liability Waiver” in their folder. The following search would locate every folder with the “Member Information” template that does not contain a document called “Liability Waiver,” so that a waiver can be obtained from those members:

{[Member Information]} – {LF:ChildName=”*Liability Waiver*”}

Note: The syntax “- {LF:ChildName=”Text”}” is not valid on its own because The NOT (-) operator is a relational operator. This syntax must be used to modify some other search type, such as the folder names or template searches.