The advanced search syntax can be used to look for all documents or folders that have been associated with a particular template. It can also be used to look for all documents or folders with a field value that matches a certain pattern. The basic syntax for each type of search is shown below.
Template: {[TemplateName]}
Field value: {[TemplateName]:[FieldName]="Value"}
In the syntax shown above, the term TemplateName represents the name of the template that must be assigned to any document or folder that will satisfy this search criteria. The term FieldName represents the name of the field that you would like to search. The term Value represents the value that will be searched for. You should notice several additional things from the syntax shown above. The first is that the entire syntax has been enclosed with braces {}. This is required. Another aspect of the syntax is that the name of the desired template and field have been enclosed with brackets []. Brackets are only required when the name contains a space or parenthesis. For example, you would definitely need to use brackets when using the advanced search syntax to search for documents and folders that have been assigned a template called "My Template (2)." Finally, if you are searching for a field that contains text, date, or date/time, then you must enclose the value that will be searched for in quotation marks. If you are searching for numbers, then quotation marks around the desired number is optional.
Note: The advanced search syntax is case-insensitive. This means that searches performed for a template name, field name, and value using different cases will return the same result. For example, {[General]:[Document]="Value"} will return the same results as {[GENERAL]:[docUMenT]="VALUE"}
When searching for field information, you may use a mathematical operator (=, >, >=, <, <=, and <>) and wildcards to determine the type of results that will be returned. For example, if you would like to find all items with the General template where the Document field begins with the text "maui", then you would specify:
{[General]:[Document]="maui*"}
If you would like to find all documents with the General template where the Date field contains a value that occurs later than May 27, 2004, then you would specify:
{[General]:[Date]>"5/27/2004"}
As with any other advanced search syntax, you can use operators to combine multiple types of searches. The following sample syntax will find all documents that contain the word "Africa" and have been assigned the Uncut template where the Type field contains the text "diamond", as well as all documents that contain the word "Africa" and have been assigned the Cut template where the Carat field is at least 12.
({[Uncut]:[Type]="diamond"} | {[Cut]:[Carat]>=12}) & Africa
Finally, you may use the advanced search syntax to search for date and date/time fields. When searching for date or date/time fields, you should use the following notation:
Date field: {[TemplateName]:[FieldName]="dd/mm/yyyy"}
Date/time field: {[TemplateName]:[FieldName]="dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm:ss tt"}
The following table describes what each element in date and date/time value represents.
| Symbol | Description |
| dd | This symbol represents the desired day of the month. |
| mm | This symbol represents the desired month. |
| yyyy | This symbol represents the desired year. A four-digit year must be specified (i.e. 2004). |
| hh | This symbol represents the desired hour. |
| mm | This symbol represents the desired minute. |
| ss | This symbol represents the desired second. |
| tt | This symbol represents the time of day (i.e. AM or PM). |