Searching for Items in the SAI

You can search for any item contained in the SAI using the Search in SAI dialog.

To search for a file in an SAI:

1. Click the icon in the toolbar. The Search in SAI window opens.
2. In the Search for items with a name containing field, type all or part of the item you want to find. A history of search items is maintained and can be accessed from the drop down list.
3. Check the Use Regular Expression option if you have specified a regular expression in the name field above.
4. Check the Limit to items also available in other SAIs option if you want to limit the search to only those items that are also available in other SAIs. If an item exists in only one SAI, it will be ignored. This is useful for finding all items that appear in more than one SAI. This option is especially of interest with regard to application versions.
5. In the Search in pane, check the box next to those areas you want to include in your search. You can narrow your search by specifying the areas in which the search will be carried out. The default settings is that all criteria are selected - the entire SAI is searched.
6. Click Search. The results are shown in the bottom pane and are presented in a tree view.
7. Double click an entry to go directly to that item in the All Contents window.

In addition, you can use the local menu command, Copy to Clipboard, in the search dialogue. It allows you to copy the content of the search results into the Windows clipboard. The content is copied in a tab separated format, so that it can be pasted into another external application, such as Microsoft Excel, Windows Notepad, and others.

There are some very good reasons why you would want to use this option when searching the SAIs that you create.

Consider the case of the user SAIs that you create for the applications that are not currently included in the master SAI. When a new monthly SAI update for master SAI files is available, you will want to search the user SAIs to show all versions in the user SAI that are also available in the new master set. This would highlight any possible clashes with the new master data. It is useful to know about these clashes because in such cases an application that previously was recognized from a user SAI might change its recognition to be recognized as a master SAI version instead.

Another case to consider is the rule-based recognition applications that are created when you define rules in the user SAI. When these rules are triggered, they create applications in the auto.zsai (or whatever SAI file that you have designated to receive automatically generated versions). When you receive a new master SAI, you will want to search the content of the auto.zsai to find out if any of the new master SAI data include versions that were created by the rule-based recognition. Again, you want to track the cases when the recognition might change from a version in the auto.zsai file to a version in a master SAI. It is important to track these recognition changes only if the recognition data is linked to some external systems, such Asset Manager using the version IDs.

In both cases, the search procedure to identify these items is the following:

1. From the SAI list on the left, select the user SAI that you want to search.
2. In the Search for items with a name containing field, enter .*
3. Check the Use Regular Expression option indicating that all items will be found since the .* regular expression matches all items.
4. Check the Limit to items also available in other SAIs option.
5. In the Search in pane, check only the Version Names check box.

The result of this search shows all versions in the user SAI that are also available in the new master set.