CERF’s powerful search engine is one of the system’s most important and useful features. Because your CERF server can contain data and documents contributed by many current and past users over a long period of time, and because CERF retains all versions of your resources, CERF typically contains many more files than your local computer. Understanding how to locate a specific resource from amongst thousands in CERF is a key skill for any CERF user. Additionally, since 21CFR11 requires that your search results only include items you have been given explicit permission to see, it is important to know how to determine if other users may have contributed useful work that you cannot initially find. 

CERF searches can be initiated in 5 main ways:

1) Click the search icon at the top right of the CERF client application to open a search in the central panel of the CERF client application.

2) Choose “Search” from the dropdown Search menu to open a new, separate search window that will not disrupt notebook editing or other activity in the central panel.

TIP: A chemaxon license is required to use Search > Chemical Structure Search from this menu, but even without a chemaxon license installed, you can still use the chemical sketch tool to create new chemical structure files.

3) You can initiate a “search by Tag” by clicking on the blue Tag links located at the top of tagged notebook pages, or at the top of the Resource Info window of any resource for which a Tag has been created. A new search window opens with parameter automatically set to “Tag” and the text of the Tag you clicked on automatically. 

TIP: Any time you unexpectedly cannot see a newly created search window, or if your search window becomes hidden behind other open windows, you can bring the search window to the front of your screen by using the CERF window selector at the bottom right of the main CERF Application window.

4) Double click a previously saved search from the left-hand saved search panel. Saved searches are extremely useful for creating dynamically updated bundles of work that are updated automatically. Think of these as being like a “smart folder” or “watch list” that let’s users maintain outstanding awareness of new data added to CERF or track existing data that has been modified in specific ways, by specific people, or during specific time periods.

5) You or your CERF System Administrator can perform searches using the CERF Web App with any modern browser. Choose Resources > Search to access. 

The CERF search tool includes an optimized list of default search parameters under the “Add Search Parameter” dropdown menu. Many additional search parameters can be chosen using popup widows that are accessed by selecting “Metadata…” or “Controlled Vocabulary…” from the default dropdown list.

The simplest type of search in CERF is the “google-like” Full Text search. Most types of Resources are indexed for Full Text searching when they are submitted to CERF. Users can use the default Full Text search to find matching text inside most types of CERF Resources, but in many cases the resulting list of “hits” will be too long to find what you want. Sorting the results by clicking column headings, or adding additional search terms and the boolean modifiers “AND”, “OR and “NOT” or creating an exact phrase search using a group of terms in quotation marks may help, but in many cases additional search parameters will be needed to filter the results and reduce the number of  “false positives” in the search results.

You can use other CERF search parameters to filter results based on various types of metadata. Metadata is added to CERF Resources when they are submitted to CERF and is automatically updated if the resource is edited. (e.g., Title, Contributor, Owner, Creation Date, Last Update Date). b) Other types of metadata can be added manually to resources at any time (e.g., Tag, Rating, CERF  Keywords, Description, Comment, etc.). In some cases, users can also search for metadata that is already embedded inside files that have been added to CERF. CERF has the ability look inside some filesand extract certain types of metadata or pre-existing file properties for use with the CERF search engine. (e.g. GPS data associated with photos from your smart phone, or the original Author/Creator of a file that was first made outside of CERF). 

The CERF search engine is extremely flexible and with the right search strategy, it can help you find any Resource, even if it has been manually removed from a File Cabinet, deleted, or is not the current version, as long as you have access to the target Resource. If a Resource has been deleted, inactivated, archived or replaced with a newer version, it will not be shown in the CERF Document Tree, but you or your CERF System Administrator will still be able to find it by selecting appropriate Activity Status or other parameters. Note that you may not be able to read the content of a CERF resource that is not currently active. CERF 5.0 even includes new “Within File Cabinet” and “Within Notebook” search parameters that can be used to show only current versions of resources in specific collections, or only show older versions that are NOT the current version. 

If you want to know who to talk to about resources that you believe to be in CERF, but which you suspect you cannot find because you do not have permission to see them, you can use the “Find Experts” search. Also, remember that your CERF System Administrator can see everything in the system, so if you cannot see what you are looking for, you can always ask your for assistance. For example if there is a deleted Resource that you think should be reactivated so that you can read it, or if you need more information about data that you know you do not yet have permission to see.