Analyzing Data in a Grid

There are many features of the Needles grid that allow you to manipulate and analyze your data. Use the Search feature to filter data by text string. The filter row allows for quick filtering by column. Applying conditioning formatting helps to highlight specific conditions in your data that you specify.

Searching

The Search Panel provides an easy way of searching against any of the visible columns in a grid. Displayed above the grid, the panel contains a search box allowing a search string to be entered. The grid data will display rows with matching content.

To display the Search Panel, do one of the following:

Click on the Hamburger icon in the upper left corner of the grid, and select the Search option from the popup menu.
Right-click a column header and select Show Search Panel from the popup menu that displays.
Use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + F.

To implement a search in the Search Panel:

Enter a text string in the search box and hit ENTER. The grid will display rows with matching data.
Click on the icon to quickly clear the search box so you can enter another search string.
Refine your searches by utilizing string combinations as detailed in the Search Syntax table below.

To close the Search Panel, do one of the following:

Click on the Close button on the Search Panel.
Hit ESC when in the search text box.
Click on the Hamburger icon and select the Search option to toggle it off.
Right-click a column header and select Hide Search Panel from the popup menu that displays.

Search Syntax

Combine words, phrases and punctuation in different ways to further refine your search criteria to get the exact results you want. Below is a table detailing how to combine the criteria to obtain different results. Searches are not case sensitive.

Search Description	Criteria Example	Expected Search Results
Search criteria consists of a single word	call	Displays rows that contain the string "call in any search column.
Search for a string containing a space. String should be surrounded with quotation marks.	"client called"	Displays rows that contain "client called" in any search column.
Without quotation marks, words separated by a space are treated as individual conditions, implementing the OR logical operator.	call client George	Displays rows that contain either "call" OR "client" OR "George" strings in any search column.
Add a "+" at the beginning of a string to display only rows that match this condition. The "+" specifier allows you to implement the logical AND operator. [There should be no space between the "+" sign and the string that follows.]	call +"Dr. Drapkin"	Displays rows that contain both "call" AND "Dr. Drapkin" in search columns.
Search for a string in a specific column by specifying the column's name with a colon before the search string. [ColumnName:SearchString]	Staff:PL client	Displays rows that contain "PL" in the column that starts with "Staff" AND also contain "client" in any search column.
Use "-" at the beginning of a string to exclude rows that match this condition from the results. [There should be no space between the "-" sign and the search string that follows.]	client +call -back	Displays rows that contain both "client" AND "call" in search columns, excluding rows that contain "back".
Search for either of two conditions while excluding a third condition.	client George -call	Displays rows that contain "client" OR "George", while excluding rows that contain "call".
Search for a string within a specific column and for a phrase in a different specified column.	Topic:client Note:"lost wages"	Displays rows that contain "client" in the column that starts with "Topic" AND also contains "lost wage" in the column that starts with "Note".