Searching

Entering search words and phrases

Unlike Outlook that searches for word strings, NEO searches for whole words.

For example, in Outlook entering “ever” returns messages with “ever”, “every” and “Everest” in them. Whereas in NEO entering “ever” returns messages with “ever” (or “Ever”) in them. If you want to get variants of “ever” you would enter “ever*” (add wildcard “*” behind the search word).

Easiest way to start a search

· From anywhere in NEO, run a new search by clicking New Search on the Standard toolbar (or press F8).

· From within Search view, click Clear (or press Esc). It's a good idea to get in the habit of clicking Clear before each new search because it resets all parameters and puts you in the text field. Please note that “Match Similar Words” is a sticky option which is not reset when clicking Clear,

Then simply enter a word or words into the white field at the top of the Search view, then click Go (or press Enter).

Entering search parameters

How to enter words to search

Search finds all messages containing the words you provide. A message is selected if your provided words are found anywhere in the message subject, message body, or address information.

Search expressions and examples

· Unless you direct otherwise, if you enter more than one word, messages are found that contain any of the words.

Ex: red green blue (same as entering red or green or blue)

· Whole words are searched for.

Ex: handle will find handle but not handlebar

· Use the wildcard character * to search for words ending in an unknown sequence.

Ex: handle* will find handle and handlebar

· Use quotes to locate exact phrases

Ex: "in that case" finds messages where words are exactly as shown.

· Searches are case-insensitive - it's easier to enter as lower case.

Ex: monday will find monday and Monday

· The words and, or, not and near can be entered, and parenthesis can be entered to control order of execution.

Ex: (car or bus) near accident finds messages containing car or bus if either word is within ten words of the word accident

Ex: car or (auto not bus) finds messages containing car and messages containing auto that don’t contain bus.

· Punctuation is replaced by blanks before the search (except for *).

Ex: Standard&Poors is the same as entering Standard Poors.

About word indexing

Searches are fast because NEO creates and uses a separate listing (index) of all the words in all messages to speed up lookups.

Word indexing takes place in two places: in the background or by updating the word index manually.

Automatic background word indexing

NEO indexes all your messages regularly according to a time frequency in minutes you specify. See Tools menu | Options | General tab to see how to set how often you want background indexing to occur.

Manually updating the word index

Since your word index may be slightly out of date while between background indexes, you can force an update of the word index from Tools | Update Word Index or by clicking the update word index icon in the Search parameters.

In practice, it's quite rare that you will need to search for messages that you have just received, so it's probably not worth forcing a manual update unless you are looking for a very recent message.

Saving Searches

Normally when you run a search the results appear in the Current Search Results folder, replacing the results of your previous run. This is the most common use of search - simply searching to quickly locate a message you need once.

If you have a recurring use for search results, you can save the search parameters and results in its own folder.

About Search Folders

· Both the parameters and the results are saved.

· The results remain the same until you refresh them (they’re static). To refresh the results to include recent messages, right-click the folder and choose Refresh Search.

· When you run a search, the results and parameters you enter always replace the currently selected Search Folder. Most often this is Current Search Results, but if it is a differed search folder the parameters and results will replace it.

Working with Search Folders

Saving a Search

· Run a search: click Clear, enter words to search, then click Go.

· Click the Save Search command .

· Optionally, rename the search folder (see next section).

Renaming a Search Folder

· Right-click the folder and choose Rename Folder (or press F2).

Refreshing a Search Folder

· If you simply want to update the results, right-click the folder and choose Refresh Folder.

· If you want to edit the parameters, select the search folder, change the values, run the search, then click the Save Search command.

Removing a Search Folder

· To Remove a search folder, right-click the folder and choose Remove Folder (or press Alt+Del). Your messages will not be removed.

Searching in a Folder

You can Search within a (Correspondent) Folder in two ways:

1. Right-click any NEO or Outlook folder and choose Search in Folder (or click F6):

2. Choose the Search view Folder menu. When you click a view listed you will be able to choose a folder within it.

Excluding Excluded and Deleted Items in Search

In Search view you can choose to search All Folders, any selected folder or choose to search All Folders except Excluded and Deleted Items.

The choice you make remains in effect until you change it. To clear your other search parameters, click Clear.

Why saved searches are useful

Suppose you are budget responsible for your department and are working for 3 months to finalize budgets for next year. All messages related to this project contain the words Budget FY06.

You could create a search with words to search: “budget FY06”. If you saved that search result, as “Budget FY06”, you could rerun the search whenever you wanted by clicking Refresh Search (right-click the Search Folder). Your search results would then be updated to include all new messages since the last time you ran the search. When finished with the project, you can simply remove this folder (Alt+Del) while all your messages remain within Outlook.

Search on Conversation

To quickly see all related messages:

· Click on the Standard toolbar, or

· Press F7.

All messages based on the same 'conversation' will be displayed.

When done, click or press Alt+LeftArrow to go back to the folder your came from.

About 'Conversation'

Every message has a property called Conversation, and it is usually the same as the Subject property but it can be different.

When a new message is created, the current Subject is copied to the message's Conversation. However, when the Subject is edited, the two will be different. Conversation always remains as the original Subject.