Improving Search features

1

@Tut - I’m reaching out to you in hopes that, as a moderator, you can bringing this message to the attention of the development team fairly quickly. I purchased Manage because I needed a system I could host locally. So far I am happy with how it operates but I am in dire need of improvements to the Search implementation (globally throughout). I’m sure I’m not the only person that feels this way.

Rather than just complain about it, I wish to offer a suggestion on how to quickly address the problem. I would like to suggest a formula based approach like:

<text_field> <text_field> …[field_title].process(parameters, …)

The leading “…” identify query element as “formula” rather than a “textual value”.
Parameters to formula have an OR relationship to one another (separated by commas).
The brackets allow for special characters in the target field’s name.
“process” default to “contains”.

For example some equalities would be:

…Amount is identical to …Amount(“500.00”)
…Amount is identical to …[Amount].contains(“500.00”) or …Amount.contains(“500.00”) or
…Ref No…contains(“1abc2”) is an illegal formula but …[Ref No.].contains(“1abc2”) is legal formula

A use case of:
XYZ Company …Amount(“500.00”, “600.00”) …Date.range(2020-08-01 to 2020-08-15, 2020-09-10 to 2020-12-31)
would translate to:
“XYZ” .AND. “Company” .AND. (Amount == “500.00” .OR. Amount == “600.00”) .AND. ( (DATE >= “2020-08-01” .AND. DATE <= “2020-08-15”) .OR. (DATE >= “2020-09-10” .AND. DATE <= “2020-12-31”))

This could integrate nicely into your current SQL query system in that each formulas can be chained as an inner JOINs to the main query. This would maintain the AND relationship between prime query elements. I realize it would require some work setting up injection filtering, but in the long run it would be a massive improvement over what is there now.

An edge case would be if someone needs to search for “…foo”. To solve this you could have the string function like:
…(“…foo”).
The only requirement this creates system wide is that no custom field can start with “(”
although " (" would be fine
This also has the added benefit that you could do a “textual OR” search
…string(“cat”, “dog”, “…foo”).

I admit a more user friendly approach, similar to what is done by airtable.com would be a more elegant solution, but the work required to put this in place would be significantly more than what I’m proposing, and what I’m proposing is reasonably simple to understand from a user standpoint.

So please consider adding this granularity to the Search tool as quickly as possible. It’s value during the setup cycle (migrating from another system) and for forensic searching would be immeasurable.

Thanks!

2

I think you misunderstand the Search function. You seem to expect a full-up search of database contents, which does not occur. You also seem to expect an ability to apply logical filters as part of a search, which does not and cannot take place without major changes to the entire concept. It would not be, as you put it, “reasonably simple.”

The function searches only what is already displayed onscreen, plus what would be displayed if more records were shown. (In other words, if 50 records of 750 are displayed, the Search will return results from all 750.) But the function does not abandon what has already been extracted from the database according to the context of the screen being viewed and dive back into the raw database.

The entire concept is one of narrowing results, not expanding them, but in benign rather than drastic ways. That is why:

  • All search strings are already treated as “contains”
  • Criterion order is ignored
  • Every additional string is treated as a Boolean AND
  • There are no qualifying parameters

Another consideration is that most Manager users are not database experts. Many would have difficulty constructing search criteria like your examples. Frankly, I am not sure I understand all of them. I also don’t see that they would be of much use during migration of a company to the program. But that is just my opinion. And, as for forensics, as you gain more experience, I think you will discover there are many ways of locating information that do not require such elaborate search techniques.

3

I understand that I might have made an assumption on the simplicity of the correct, not knowing how the actual underlying design, and for that I apologize.

In my case, the problem I am having is with import a bank statements. Some transactions are bank to bank transfers. Is would seem to only proper way to create these transactions is to import them separately through the “Batch Create” in the “Inter Account Transfers” page. Going through 7 years of statements just makes it more difficult to isolate the batch for modifications. Perhaps you have some guidance on how to deal with this most efficiently because I’m having difficult isolating each unique batches. (My current thought is Specialized Reference No. - at least for now).

Thank you in advance.

4

Read this Guide: https://www.manager.io/guides/17304.

My recommendation would be not to try to recreate 7 years of historical transactions in Manager, but to set starting balances. Read the related Guides on starting balances.

5

@Tut is it possible to have the same search capabilities of mix and match from main screen Search for “Item” and “Account” at transaction level (SO, SI, PO, PI, etc)? below examples.

Main Screen Search

Screen Shot 2021-06-19 at 10.05.28 AM
Screen Shot 2021-06-19 at 10.05.28 AM2576×490 103 KB

Transaction Level (Searched for: Sales of Goods)

Screen Shot 2021-06-19 at 10.03.11 AM
Screen Shot 2021-06-19 at 10.03.11 AM2050×814 70 KB

Thank you.

6

No, you cannot do that. When you are selecting an item or account, you are using an autocomplete capability, not a search function. The process is progressive. That is, as you type more, the options narrow to those that match the string you have entered.

If you were trying to select an account named Office supplies from choices of Office rent, Office supplies, and Office utilities, all three options would show after typing Office…. But as soon as you type the next letter, s, only Office supplies would display. Office utilies would not display just because it also contains the letter s.

7

@Tut @lubos you don’t think this is an idea to implement if possible. This would speed up the search of items and accounts when creating documents.

Just thoughts, system is great regardless!

Thank you.

8

Personally, no, I do not think this is an idea to implement. The program has used the progressive autocomplete feature for many years. While you might like an entirely different search capability in its place, what you suggest would actually take more keystrokes, because you would have to enter the search criteria, then a key to enter them into the search process. Many users would complain.

9

It is now at the point where it no longer has to do with going through back history (this was necessary evil and is now thankfully done), it is actually a necessary going forward. When I “Import a bank statement” there are always some inter-account transfers. It would be nice to have a checkbox in the “Import Bank Statement” workflow to switch between types of records being added, whether they be “Receipt & Payment” or “Inter Account Transfer” so “bank rules” can be applied. This seems like a rudimentary request.

10

I don’t know what your last post has to do with searching.

11

Hi everyone, I am still hoping that global search be implemented on the software. This will look into all available data, including the created custom fields. At the moment, if a custom field is not ticked to show as column, you don’t have a way to filter or search a certain keyword.

I believe there are many instances which may be pointed out as reason to implemented Global Search. Anyone agreeing with me on this, may you please add an examples.