Find documents by words, exact phrases, and metadata field values across Documents, My Queue, and Drive.
DocQ's search box accepts plain words, exact phrases, and metadata field conditions, and they can be combined freely in a single search. Searches are not case-sensitive, and every condition you type must hold at once unless you say otherwise.
Search is available in Documents, My Queue, and Drive. For the full capability described on this page, turn Full-text search ON and keep both document body and document metadata checked in the search options.
Info
Field searches and quoted phrases depend on DocQ's updated search indexing. If a search form below does not behave as described on your instance, contact your DocQ administrator about enabling it.
Type one or more words. A document matches when it contains all of them -- in the name, the metadata, or the file contents.
| Search | Finds documents that contain |
|---|---|
annual report | both words, anywhere |
7521-14 | that exact number -- identifiers with hyphens match whole, not by their pieces |
7521* | any number or word starting with 7521 |
Use * when you only know the beginning of a word or number. There is no middle-of-word matching, so search whole identifiers rather than fragments.
Wrap words in double quotes to require them together, in that order:
| Search | Finds |
|---|---|
"northwind supply" | that exact phrase, in metadata values or in the document text |
"payment terms" | phrase matching works on file contents too |
"PN-4402B" or "2024/118" | identifiers containing letters, slashes, or colons -- quoted, they match exactly; unquoted, they match loosely |
To search inside one metadata field, write the field name, an equals sign, and the value with no spaces around the =:
| Search | Finds documents where |
|---|---|
invoice_number=104250 | that field holds that value -- the same value in a different field does not match |
line_item.part_number=7521-14 | any row of a repeating group matches -- write the group and field with no row number |
part_number=7521-14 | shorthand: the last segment of a field name works alone |
"vendor_name=northwind supply" | the field holds a multi-word value -- quote the whole condition |
invoice_number=1042* | the field's value starts with 1042 |
invoice_number | the field exists on the document at all |
Field names are written in lowercase with underscores -- the technical name, not the on-screen label. For example, a field displayed as "Invoice #" is searched as invoice_number. Your workflow administrator can provide the field names used in your forms.
| Search | Meaning |
|---|---|
vendor_name=northwind status=approved | a space means AND -- both must hold |
approver_name=dana | approver_name=marco | | means OR -- either one |
vendor_name=northwind -status=cancelled | - means NOT -- exclude matches |
(approver_name=dana | approver_name=marco) status=approved | group OR choices in parentheses when mixing with AND |
"net 30" line_item.category=hardware | phrases, field conditions, and plain words mix freely |
| This won't work | Why | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
7521 finding 7521-14 | Hyphenated numbers are stored as one whole number so they match exactly, instead of every document containing a 7521 or a 14 somewhere. | 7521* |
wind finding Northwind | Matching is by whole word; there is no middle-of-word search. | north* |
1000 finding 1,000 | Numbers with commas are kept as written: a comma can also separate a list of numbers, so merging them automatically would corrupt lists. | 1,000 |
PN-4402B being exact without quotes | Letters, slashes, and colons split an identifier into separate words. Fusing them automatically would also fuse ordinary hyphenated words and break normal search, so only digit-to-digit hyphens are fused. | "PN-4402B" |
"2024/118" finding 2024-118 | Different written formats are different identifiers: the hyphenated form is stored as one fused number, the slashed form as two adjacent words. | search the format the document uses |
line_item. fields can be satisfied by different rows of the same document.Tip
The fastest search is usually a field condition. If you know which field holds the value you're looking for, field=value returns exactly the right documents without any noise.