Tip of the Week

There are a variety of ways to search inside TIBCO Spotfire. Some are designed for the end users and some are designed for the administrator. This tip will walk you through the different types of search capabilities, and what can be done with them.

Global Filter

End Users can search for a variety of things using the Find capability in TIBCO Spotfire. The Find UI is available by pressing CTRL + F or going to Tools > Find.

This find dialog is very useful in not only finding and navigating to specific pages and visualizations, but you can also use it as a shortcut for performing actions in Spotfire. This is extremely useful for users who routinely create analysis files.

You can use the Find dialog to quickly apply marked records to tags, you can quickly perform actions available in the menubars, and you can search for specific pages and visualizations.  In addition, you can search for the visualizations not just by their name, but also by values on an axis, page title, visualization title, etc...

For example,  ‘age’ will return all visualizations with Age using in one of the axis or in the page title, whereas ‘x:age’ will return all visualizations with Age on the x-axis, and ‘color:age’ will return all visualizations with Age on the color-axis.

More information about the specific commands, and actions available in the Find dialog is available at:

http://stn.spotfire.com/stn/UserDoc.aspx?UserDoc=spotfire_client_help/search/search_find.htm

Searching via the Filter Panel

The Filter Panel provides a search box to allow end users to quickly search for filters.  The most basic search is to enter a string, and filters that contain the letters in the string will be displayed, all others will be hidden.  This is useful when you have a large, multiple data table, analysis file and need to quickly find a specific filter.

In addition, you can also use some reserved search keywords like status, with a value of ‘modified’, which will return all filters that have been modified.

You can also use any built-in Column property.  Column properties are available via the  Edit > Column Properties dialog , in the Properties tab.

These properties can then be searched for in the Filter Panel search box. The syntax used is to specify the name of the property followed by a colon, and then the value.

For example,

DistinctValueCount:4  will display all filters where the DistinctValueCount property value is 4.

In addition, you can create Custom Properties and filter on those as well. Custom Properties are created using the New button in the Column Properties dialog.

The property must take the format companyName.property.  You will set a default value, and all columns in the data table will have the default value applied. You then go into each individual column and edit the property for that column.

One useful use case for this is to create Custom Properties to group Filters together. Using the Filter Panel, you can group Filters, but you can only put a Filter into one group.   You can create a Custom Property for each grouping of filters you wish to have. Then you can use the Filter Panel search to return each grouping when you need to access those Filters.           

More information about the syntax and use of the Filter Panel search is available at:

http://stn.spotfire.com/spotfire_client_help/filter/filter_searching_for_filters.htm

Searching in the Library

The Library provides a robust searching mechanism, and is available in three user interfaces: the Open From Library dialog, the Library Administration Tool, and the Information Designer.

In addition to the obvious benefits of being able to search for analysis files and information links (using keywords, descriptions, and other useful metadata), the search capability also provides useful tools for administrators.

Using the search dialog, administrators can search for library items created by certain users, modified by certain users. You can also search for items that are dependent on or required by certain library items. This can be useful if you plan on removing or updating items. Before doing so, you can check all dependencies and required items, and then make sure they will still function.

You can also search for items based off when they were created or modified, and you can include logical operators to check, for example, files created or modified before a certain time.

More information about the library search capabilities is available at:

http://stn.spotfire.com/stn/UserDoc.aspx?UserDoc=spotfire_client_help/lib/lib_searching_the_library.htm