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Reporting Operators and Wildcards

Within the reporting tools, you can filter your data by using constraints. Within the constraints functions you can apply Operators and Wildcards to further narrow down your search.

 

Operators #

Includes: This operator returns any records which exactly match the input.

  • Does not allow the use of wildcards
  • Will accept ranges denoted by dashes. Ranges are inclusive.
    • Example: “1000–2000” will return records matching 1000, 1001, 1002…2000, but will exclude a record matching 2001.

Does not Include: This operator excludes any records which exactly match the input.

  • Does not allow the use of wildcards.
  • Will accept ranges denoted by dashes. Ranges are inclusive.
    • Example: “1000-2000” will exclude records matching 1000, 1001, 1002…2000, but will return a record matching 2001.

Greater Than or Equal To (>=): Numeric data only. This operator looks for records matching a value greater than or equal to the specified value. Does not allow the use of wildcards, or ranges.

  • Example: “>= 1000” will return any records matching 1000, 1001, 1002, etc. but will exclude records matching 900.

Less than or Equal To (<=): Numeric only data. This will allow you to match records to a specific number and lower. Does not allow the use of wildcards, or ranges.

  • Will only exclude data if the record completely matches the input.
  • Will accept ranges by the use of dashes
    • example: “<= 1000” will return any records matching 1000, 999, 998, etc. but will exclude records matching 2000.

Like: This operator looks for partial matches within records.

  • Uses wildcards (covered in next section) to specify search terms.

 

Wildcards #

A wildcard is a character that can be used as a substitute for any of a class of characters when using the Like operator.

* (Asterisk): Represents zero or more characters

  • *12345 returns any record ending with 12345.
  • 12345* returns any record beginning with 12345.
  • *12345* returns records containing 12345 in any position.

? (Question Mark): Represents a single character

  • 123???? returns any record beginning with 123 followed by any four characters, one for each ?.
    • This example will return records matching 1234567 and 1234444, but not 1234 or 123456789.
  • 123?567 returns any record matching 123_567 with any character in the fourth position.
    • This example will return records matching 1234567 and 1234567, but not 123444567 or 123567.