To generate a ProblemTracker report, press the Query button located in the button bar. The Dialog Area of the Query page that is displayed has three separate sections: a Saved Queries bar, a Saved Report Layouts bar, and the Query for Records section. All three sections operate independently of each other (except for the Preview button in the Saved Queries bar). The Saved Queries bar and the Saved Report Layouts bar are described in the next Help topic. This Help topic describes the Query for Records part of the Query page.

You can combine any or all of the various fields displayed to define a query. Each value is applied to the query as an AND clause, that is, the query will return all records that match all of the specified criteria.

The rules for each particular data type are:

Integer or Float
You can specify a value and one of the following conditions: >,<,=. To match any value, select the condition ? and leave the value blank.

Pulldown
You can pick any particular value, or select * to match any value.

Date
You can enter a start and an end date for the period you wish to match. To match any value, leave the field blank.

Status
You can select any currently defined workflow state, or a State Group. State Groups allow you to defined collections of states to query against. By default the system defines a single State Group named All that includes all the current workflow states, but your Administrator can define others. For example, your Administrator could define a State Group named "Active" that includes all the states except for "Closed". Click here for more information on State Groups.

Assigned To
You can select any active user or user group within the system. User groups are denoted as [user group] within the pulldown.

In addition to specifying the search criteria, you can also select which fields to Sort By, Sort Order for the selected sort fields and which Report Format to use for the query results. Report formats determine what columns are displayed and in what order. The Sort By, Sort Order and Report Format selection are at the bottom of the web page.

There are three buttons in the Query for Records section. For convenience, they are displayed at both the top and bottom of the web page.

Run Query
The Run Query button executes the query based on the values specified in the Query for Records section including each query field, the Sort By selections, and the Report Layout selection. Both the Sort By and Report Layout selections for the Run Query operation are at the bottom of the page. The Saved Queries bar and Saved Report Layouts bar (just below the Status bar) have no affect on the Run Query operation.

Clear
The Clear button restores the default values and wildcards for each query field. This function is useful if you wish to restore the query field values to a query which will "return all records".

Reset
The Reset button restores the values supplied for each query field to the values which were used in the last query. This function is useful if you wish to use a previously executed query as a baseline for further queries.

Dependent Pulldowns

In some cases, your ProblemTracker Administrator may have configured dependent pulldowns in the system. A set of dependent pulldowns is a pair of pulldown menus where one pulldown is the child pulldown field and the other is the parent pulldown field. The menu option values that are displayed in the child pulldown field are determined by the menu option value that is selected for the parent pulldown field. A simple example to illustrate this functionality:

A system has a pulldown called Product with two menu option values "Our Computer" and "Our Printer". A pulldown called Component has the menu option values "Hard Drive", "Video Card", "Toner", and "Paper Tray". The components "Hard Drive" and "Video Card" correspond to the "Our Computer" menu option in the Product pulldown field. The components "Toner" and "Paper Tray" correspond to the "Our Printer" menu option in the Product field. When a user selects "Our Computer" for the Product field, only the options "Hard Drive" and "Video Card" will be displayed in the Component field. The Component pulldown (child) is dependent on the Product pulldown (parent).

By default, these relationships between pulldown fields are not enforced when running queries. If you would like these dependencies between pulldown fields to be enforced when you perform queries (including the queries that display your home page reports), change the setting "Enforce Pulldown Dependency in Query" to be set to Yes in the Personal Preferences section. To do this,

1. Login to ProblemTracker.
2. On the Home Page, click on the link to the Personal Preferences section.
3. Configure the setting "Enforce Pulldown Dependency in Query" to Yes
4. Click OK to save this change.

Examples

Goal Procedure Find all records assigned to "Robert Frank" Press the Clear button. Then do a Field Lookup by setting the "Assigned To" field to "Robert Frank". Then press the Run Query button. Find all problems for the product "Big Widget" that need to be assigned for testing Press the Clear button. Then do a Field Lookup by setting the "Product" field to "Big Widget" and the "Status" field to "Fixed". Then press the Run Query button. Locate a problem related to random program crashes. Press the Clear button. Then do a String Lookup in the Description field. Enter "random crash" in the "Description" text field and press the Run Query button.

Query Results

Once you have generated a query, you can view, task, or edit any of the records listed in the query results. You can change the sort order of the Query results at any time by clicking on the field name of the column you wish to sort by. The initial sort order is based on the selections made in the Sort By section on the Query page. The field that is being used as the primary sort field will have an arrow to the right of the field name. If the arrow is pointing down, the results are sorted by that field in a descending order. If the arrow is pointing up, the results are sorted by that field in an ascending order. Clicking once on the field with the arrow will reverse the sort order. Clicking once on any field that does not have the arrow will sort the results in ascending order by that field. Any field except BigText type fields can be clicked to sort the results by that field. You can also format the query results to print them as a table or text (text will display the full contents of all fields, table format may truncate long fields based on the settings in the Report Layout you used).

If you have the appropriate privilege you may also have the option to "Edit Results." The Edit Results option allows you to make changes to all of the records that matched your query in a single edit operation. Please note that using the Edit Results options can make large changes to your database and cannot be undone. By default, this option is only available to the administrator.

If you have the appropriate privileges and your system has been configured to use "hard" deletes (deletes which permanently purge records from the database), then you may see a Delete Records button. Clicking this button will (after asking for a final confirmation), permanently delete all records that matched the query you just ran. However, entries will be made to Record History for all records deleted in this manner. By default, ProblemTracker is configured to perform only "soft" (recoverable) deletes and only the administrator is able to perform the Delete Records operation (it requires the same privilege as Edit Results).