Using the Advanced Search

Modified on Mon, 22 Apr 2024 at 02:54 PM


Actionstep's Advanced Search allows you to search for and find anything in Actionstep based on a few keywords. It allows you to do a more advanced search to help you find specific items in Actionstep. The search is broken down into four of five different parts (depending on what Actionstep plan you are on). 

In this article, we will tell you how you can access the Advanced Search and how you can use it.


NOTE: The Advanced Search is only available on Actionstep's Practice Pro and Practice Pro + Accounting plans. The Conflict Check Report, however, is available on all plans including our Express plan.

 

TIP: You can also use Actionstep's Conflict Check Report to search for all items in Actionstep and the information is presented in a better format for printing.

 

 

Accessing the Advanced Search 

The easiest way to access the Advanced Search in Actionstep is by looking under the More...   link that you find in the navigation bar at the top of the Actionstep screen. When you navigate it this way, you can choose to focus your search down to searching through Documents, Matters, Contacts, Knowledge Base, or Emails.


NOTE: The knowledge base is an intranet function that Actionstep offers on our Practice Pro + Accounting plan. If you would like to upgrade your Actionstep's Practice Pro + Accounting plan, please contact Support.



You can also get to the Advanced search when you use the search box in the top right of Actionstep. Type in a search and if you don't get the result you expect, click on "Advanced Search".


Navigating to 'Advanced Search' screen under the 'More' menu option


NOTE: Email attachments can be accessed within emails via email search. Email attachments will not return in document searches unless they have been moved or copied to matter documents.


 

Using the Advanced Search

The advanced search has a simple format. At the top are the different search types you can run. Click on the appropriate option depending on what you are looking for.

In the search box enter the keywords you want to search for and click the Go button. 

The results will display under the search box. You can use the options down the left of the screen to filter those results. The filters themselves will change depending on the type of search you do.

 

When looking at the results Actionstep will display a sample of the text displayed. 

 

Consideration for the Advanced Search 

There are a couple of things that are good to keep in mind regarding how the Advanced search in Actionstep will work. 

Permissions

Permissions will still apply to the results you see in the Advanced Search. For example, if you do not have permission to see a matter then you will not see it as a result in any Advanced search. The same applies to any documents or emails on a matter you do not have access to. 

Searching content of documents

Actionstep's conflict check will search the content of all the documents in your system but the following limitations should be kept in mind:

  • Actionstep will monitor the first 2MB of data within a document. Files that have text content larger than this will be mostly but not fully checked by our Advanced Search. More than 99.9% of documents stored with Actionstep will have text content that is less than 2MB. 
  • Documents that will be searched must be text-based. Image and video files will not have their content searched (though names, metadata, etc will be). Scanned documents will likely be treated as images regardless of what format they are stored in.
  • Documents that are stored in a document integration will not be included in an Advanced Search, Actionstep integrates with NetDocuments, Box, Google Drive, and DropBox. These integrations allow you to access documents in those products from your matter but an Advanced Search in Actionstep will not include those documents. 




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