Find Multimedia Advanced Search

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Find Multimedia – Advanced Search

Click Tools – Find Multimedia and click Advanced Search to create a query for multimedia files or playlists available at your site, or select the Advanced Search option within choose multimedia operations

You can use multiple object attributes as search criteria to refine multimedia searches. This dialog is divided into expandable sections containing options for refining your search. Click the plus + to expand or minus - to collapse sections. Optionally click Expand or Collapse All. CommonSpot displays a green check mark for sections containing advanced search criteria.

Click the Save icon at the bottom of the dialog for searches you use often so that you do not have to recreate them. Note that you can share saved searches. See the Contributor's Reference for details.

Set Search Criteria:

What type of multimedia content do you want to see? - CommonSpot can filter results by the following content types:
All Content Types - Returns both individual files and playlists for all multimedia file types used at your site.
Multimedia - Returns individual multimedia files. Pick from the dropdown to further limit results to specific file types, as shown.
Note that once you apply this filter, you must select All Types from the dropdown to re-enable other options.
Multimedia Playlists - Returns only named playlists (collected sets of files).

Who owns the multimedia content you are looking for? - This option lets you filter for files or playlists by "All Owners", the "Current user" (you), "Members of the current user's group" (your groups), or use"Custom" criteria, which displays a Select button for opening the Add Users dialog, an administrative function. See Users and Groups in the Administrator's Reference for more information.

What subsite do you want to search within? Choose the specific subsite and the child subsites to search. Your choices are "All subsites", "Current subsites", "Parent subsite", "Direct child subsites", "Sibling subsites", or "Custom" which displays a dropdown for selecting a subsite. If you choose Custom, optionally search child subsites. Alternatively, click the subsite locator icon to display the Select Subsite dialog.

Note that you can use custom criteria to limit the number of child subsites searched, as described below.

Is the multimedia content associated with any keywords or tags? Restrict results by providing a comma-separated list of terms or Select Keywords or Select Tags to choose from existing keywords or personal tags. Search results returns files associated with at least one of the specified terms.

When was the multimedia content created or modified? Use this area to filter by date. Clicking the calendar icon displays the Specify Date Range Duration dialog for setting date criteria.

Use the Expired option to define criteria for viewing expired files.

How is the multimedia content categorized? Use this area to search for files by category. This section defaults to CommonSpot document categories. Multimedia created before the Winter 2013 release may be associated with one of these categories. Defaults to Any.

Do you have any custom search criteria? - You can add criteria that must be matched. To build an advanced query, determine the full criteria you wish to build. See Search Tips for more detail.

Field - Select the field to search against in the Field dropdown. The values you can select are "Language", "Creation Date", "Last Modification Date", "Last Major Modification Date", "Publication Date", "Subsite", "Category", "Keywords", "Owner", "Format", "Parent Template", "File Name", "Title", or "Description".
Operator - Select the operator (greater than, equal to, within, and the like) from the Operator field. The operators in this dropdown depend upon what you selected in the Field dropdown list.
Value - Enter or select a value. The values available here depend on your selection in the Field dropdown list.
AND/OR - If you are searching for multiple criteria, set the AND or OR operator between each criteria line.
Parentheses - If you need to group criteria, use parentheses to define logic; for example, "(A or B) and C". Select parentheses from the unlabeled dropdowns that begin and end a set of criteria. To futher refine more complex criteria, you can select 1, 2, or 3 parentheses. For example, "((A or B) and C) or D".
Note that selecting subsite criteria, as shown below,
and then including child subsites gives you the additional option of limiting the number of subsite levels to search. Use this feature for less resource-intensive processing and more relevant search results when running queries for subsites with many children.
Optionally click Remove All Custom Criteria to clear the form.

Do you want the search results narrowed further? Pick from the Service or Channel dropdowns. The Channel dropdown only displays channels for which you have permissions. See Multimedia Channels in the Administrator's Reference.

Sorting: How would like the results sorted? - CommonSpot can display document search results sorted by data stored with the document. Choose from Creation date, Last modification date, Last major modification date, Publication (Release) date, Expiration date, Title, Subsite, Owner, and the contents of variables created at your site. Select either Ascending (a-z) or Descending (z-a) to set the display order for your results.

Save searches by clicking Save, or, for edited searches, use the Save As option at the bottom of the dialog. The Save - Saved Search As dialog displays.

Click View Results to execute your search. Results display in the Choose or Find Multimedia Search Results dialog, or, if you filtered by playlist, in the Choose or Find Playlist Search Results dialog. Click Cancel to exit without executing or saving your criteria.

Related Links

You can download PDF versions of the Content Contributor's, Administrator's, and Elements Reference documents from the support section of paperthin.com (requires login).

The following guides are available from the support site and are in the /docs/directory of your CommonSpot Server:

You can also download these other guides from the support section of paperthin.com (with login):

For technical support:

http://www.paperthin.com/support/