Main Page Structure

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1. Create New Search Start the Advanced Wizard to build a new advanced search.
2. This section displays a list of all advanced searches available to all users.
3. Create a New Folder Create folders to allow for better organization of your advanced searches by allowing you to create folders and then place searches in those folders.
4. List of currently available advanced searches
5. Quick List Individual functions for each search (Run, Duplicate, Edit, Remove and Email Icon)
6. Folder Folder within the public search section. This folder may contain more folders or advanced searches.
7. Private-To-Me Searches Save your searches in this area to keep them private from all users.
8. Private-To-Agency Searches Save your searches in this area to keep private to your agency (for multiple agency clients)

Creating A New Search

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To create a new search click the 'Create A New Search' button from the Advanced Search Main Menu.

• Name of Search In this section you want to name your report. Keep the name simple and specific.
• Who Should Have Access This defines which section the report will belong. This also will determine who has access to viewing the search.
• Which Agencies Do You Want To Search? If you are using multiple locations and have access to more than one location this area will allow you to determine which agency to run the search against. You can run against more than one or all agencies.
• Select The Folder For This Search This section will be presented after you select Who Should Have Access To This Report. If you have created sub-folders you can now place your searches in this folder.
• What Type of Search Is This? This is a very power new feature in v6.5. The old version of Tracker would only allow you to get search results in the form of a item list. You now have the option to get results in many different formats.
  • Items You are looking for a set of results in the form of items list.
  • Persons You are looking for a set of results in the form of persons list.
  • Cases You are looking for a set of results in the form of a case list.
  • Chain of Custody Items You are looking for a list of distinct items that have ever had a particular matching chain of custody entry. (Exp, give me a list of all items that were at one point checked in.)
  • Chain of Custody Entries You are looking for a set of results based chain of custody entries for items. (Exp, give me a list of all chain of custody transactions in the last month that were check-ins.)
• When you have defined all the parameters click continue.

Defining Search Parameters

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We are now at a point where we are going to start defining the criteria for our search. The search criteria will determine what data we see on the report. Click the link at the top left. This will bring up a screen that shows a listing of all fields that we can search against.

Note: An item(s) based search will show different field options than a case based search. For example, if you do a case based search you won't see a list of all the person and item level fields. You will be presented with all fields that are available for your particular type of search.

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I am going to select the item level category field.

We are now back at the criteria screen and it reflects the data field we selected search.

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We are also seeing two additional fields at this point. The first is the validation drop down menu which will define what type of search we are running against the category field and the second box shows us a list of the values for that field.

Note: The reason we are seeing all of our values instead of a blank text box would be based on the fact that the category field is a drop down menu. If we were performing a search against a text box field we would have been presented with a blank text box where we would have typed in the value we were looking for.

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I am going to select the 'Equal To' option and I am going to click on the 'Drugs' field since that is one of my options. If you wanted, you could also select more than one option by holding down the Control key on your keyboard while clicking multiple fields.

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If you select more than one field (using the control key) it will search for all items where category is equal to drugs OR firearms OR computer (based on the fields I selected for this screen shot).

Defining Additional Search Parameters

In cases where there is more criteria you can build on your initial search criteria. The following screen shot shows the single line we created in the last section.

To add more criteria for this search click the 'Add' option at the bottom of the screen.

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We are now presented with a new line item that will allow us to specify additional search criteria.

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In this example I selected the 'Date Recovered' and changed my validation to 'Between' and selected the desired date range.

Note: The results of this report will show all items where category is Drugs or Firearm or Computer AND the date recovered is between 1/1/2008 and 12/31/2008.

You can add more search criteria if you like by clicking the Add button again.

Output for the report

After you have defined all of your search criteria you will click the 'Next' button at the very bottom of the screen. This will advance you to the page where you will select the output for your report.

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This screen is going to show all fields that are available for export to the report. Select the fields that you want on the results report and click the add button at the top of the screen. This will take those fields you have selected and make them part of the list on the right.

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Note: The order of these fields are very important. The first field in the column will dictate ordering of your results. If you want the results report to be sorted by case in ascending order then make sure the case field is the first field in the column.

Report Queue

Tracker 6.5 makes use of the Tracker Report Server for building and running all reports. Instead of building the results on the fly, requiring users to wait for the report results (as it builds), we now kick the report to the Tracker Report Server and notify the user when the report is complete. This allows the user to get back to work while the system builds the report.

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At the top of your screen you should notice a option that shows how many reports are in your report queue. This notification is also a link to the report queue. From the main menu click 'Report Queue: X'.

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You are now directed to the Report Queue which shows all reports (last 50) that you have run in the system. Each line shows the name of the report, when it was built, status, and options to view, print, export or delete.

Note: Each report is built and those results are saved per the report. Each time you view the report you are seeing a data snapshot from that moment in time. If you want to see the newest data for that report then go back to the advanced search and Run the report.

• View Report This option displays the results of records on the screen.
• Print Report Send the results of the report to your local printer.
• Export Report This option will export all data results to a CSV file for your use.
• Delete Report This option will remove the report with this data snapshot.

Run, Duplicate, Edit, Delete and Email Alerts

The main screen of the advanced search shows a Run, Duplicate, Edit, Delete and Email option for each report.

• Run Immediately start the report results option and build a new report in your report queue.
• Duplicate Allow a user to duplicate this report to a new report. This is valuable for more advanced searches that are easier copied and modified vs a new build.
• Edit Edit the criteria of the search.
• Delete Remove the advanced search Email Icon Setup email parameters for report emailing options.

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Using the and/or Group Function

When your query has more than one line item of criteria, you have additional options of AND / OR / GROUP. These three additional clauses can cause your data results to be different depending on how you use them. Let's start with a couple of examples of where this might be used.

Example Query 1 - Give me a list of all items where item category is Drugs AND date recovered is January 2010. Results = All drug items from January 2010.

Example Query 2 - Give me a list of all items where item category is Drugs OR date recovered is January 2010. Results = All items from January 2010 (regardless of category) OR drug items (the January date does not apply to the drug part because you are using OR).

Notice the AND / OR drop down menu. From this area you can change which of these options will be used for a query.

Note: The default option is AND; you will have to change to OR if necessary.

Grouping

Grouping is the process of combining query lines so that the computer will run those grouped items together versus separately. Why does this matter? Good question.

What is 5+5/2+3=10.5 What is 5+5/(2+3)=2

The use of ( and ) groups the 2+3. See how a simple grouping gives you a totally different answer. Now lets look at an example in item tracking.

Example Query 3 - Give me a list of all items where item category is drugs OR currency AND are date recovered is January 2010.

Drugs + Currency + Jan 2010 = List of all drugs OR currency AND January 2010 items. You might think you are getting drugs or currency from Jan 2010 but that is not the case.

If I group (Drugs + Currency) + Jan 2010 = Drugs or Currency from Jan 2010. This is the answer to Drugs or Currency from Jan 2010.