Advanced Search Tutorial

The NIF advanced search interface platform provides several native and custom functions for displaying and sorting search results. Some of the more useful features are:

1. Search tips: Provides help for composing searches in NIF




2. Increase display results window: The window for displaying results can be increased in size by clicking on the up arrow icon. This action hides the NIF advanced search interface. This action can be toggled on and off by clicking on the arrow icon.




3. Increase column size: Columns can be resized by positioning the cursor over the boundary between columns. When the resize icon appears, click on the mouse and drag the column to the desired width.




4. Sort column results alphabetically: Column results may be sorted alphabetically in either ascending or descending order by positioning the mouse on the column header and clicking on the down arrow icon that appears on the right side of the column. Select "Sort ascending" or "Sort descending".




5. Managing column displays: Individual columns may be turned on and off by positioning the mouse on the column header, clicking on the down arrow and navigating to the "Columns" menu. Use the mouse to unselect individual columns. This action is useful when a large amount of text in one column makes browsing of the results difficult.




6. Export results: Results displayed in the NIF data federation window may be exported in CSV (Comma Separated Values) format by clicking on the "Export" link. Use the browser download function to either open the results in a spreadsheet program, e.g., Excel, or to save the file to disk.




7. Change number of results displayed: The number of results records displayed in the window can be increased from the default 10 results to 20 or 50 by clicking on the down arrow and selecting a new value.