Searching the Help
To search for information in the Help, type a word or phrase in the Search box. When you enter a group of words, OR is inferred. You can use Boolean operators to refine your search.
Results returned are case insensitive. However, results ranking takes case into account and assigns higher scores to case matches. Therefore, a search for "cats" followed by a search for "Cats" would return the same number of Help topics, but the order in which the topics are listed would be different.
Words and Phrases
| Search for | Example | Results |
|---|---|---|
| A single word | cat
|
Topics that contain the word "cat". You will also find its grammatical variations, such as "cats". |
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A phrase. You can specify that the search results contain a specific phrase. |
"cat food" (quotation marks) |
Topics that contain the literal phrase "cat food" and all its grammatical variations. Without the quotation marks, the query is equivalent to specifying an OR operator, which finds topics with one of the individual words instead of the phrase. |
Using Boolean Operators
| Search for | Operator | Example |
|---|---|---|
|
Two or more words in the same topic |
|
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| Either word in a topic |
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| Topics that do not contain a specific word or phrase |
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| Topics that contain one string and do not contain another | ^ (caret) |
cat ^ mouse
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| A combination of search types | ( ) parentheses |
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- Field help editor
- Creating field help
- Preparing to create field help
- Access the help table
- Access field help from the System Navigator
- Determine the fields that a form contains
- Determine the fields that a table contains
- Determine whether help exists for a field
- How does Service Manager determine which help record to display?
- Add or edit help records
- Review field help records
How does Service Manager determine which help record to display?
A field help record must have a field name and either a table name or a form name to be displayed.
- The default record for a field must have the field name and the table name, but no form name. Service Manager displays the default help record for a field for all forms that use the field, excluding those that have a form specific help record.
- A form specific help record for a field includes the form name. Service Manager only displays that particular help record when it displays that particular form.
If there is no help record for a field, Service Manager displays “No Description”.
If there is no form name or table name in a help record, Service Manager will not display that record as help on a field. However, you can still search for the record and open it using the Field help editor. This is useful if you want to create a glossary of terms, for example.
Best practice
To ensure consistent field descriptions on all forms, omit the form name from the field help record.
If you add a form name to a field help record, the text displays only when Service Manager displays that form. Adding a form name can be a useful technique for documenting special forms, but may increase the number of help records to maintain.
Related concepts
Creating field help
Preparing to create field help
Field help editor
Related tasks
