Teamwork.com recently published a blog about a new feature in Teamwork Chat, namely searching. (https://blog.teamwork.com/introducing-search-teamwork-chat). We thought we would take a moment to highlight a feature within Teamwork Projects that we all use, but perhaps don’t appreciate all that much. Searching!
Teamwork Projects – Search Field
Searching within Teamwork Projects can be done is a variety of ways. First, At the top of your screen you should see a simple search field. Type something in, what happens? Your search results start to appear as your type, these results are for all active projects within Teamwork. Don’t see what you are looking for in your quick results? Press Enter; what do you get? Your detailed results screen. So what’s the difference?
Your location within Teamwork Projects will determine the results you see. For instance, if you are on your dashboard your search will include all active projects. If you are within a project, you will be searching within that specific project. Now, that feature in itself is powerful as they are taking the guess work out of where you are searching.
Simple right? Yes. Now, try clicking the search field, what do you get?
The answer: a very sophisticated search bar that allows you to narrow down where you are searching. If you want to search files for that file you know is there but cannot find, enter some text and click Search Files. Simple, done.
Why is this important? As your project grows so too will the plethora of information that is available and to let’s be honest, can sometimes be difficult to locate. Establishing proper best practices for the information going into Teamwork, will ensure that the items you want to find can be found.
Advanced Search
Teamwork.com also provides the option of using an advanced search. This is a far more powerful tool that allows you to search more.
Within the advanced search window, you can select if you want to search within completed items, archived projects or archived messages. Simply by adding more filters there is nothing you cannot find with Teamwork Projects.
A good search is only as good as the information provided to it. Teamwork.com is not the mind reader you think it is, so how can you make your search results better?
Establish Best Practices
A good search is only as good as the information provided to it. Teamwork.com is not the mind reader you think it is, so how can you make your search results better?
A great best-practice that can be implemented is consistent task and file names. For example, if you add tasks based on specific areas of an application you could start with the area-page-name-brief_description. So, if you wanted to find something on the portal you could search “portal”. Another best practice for files would be naming with the date. The Government uses a file format similar to 2017-MAR-20-FILENAME for all of their files, so if you know the date you created a file this allows you to easily locate it. So, if you wanted to locate a file you know you created in March 2017, you would simply search 2017-MAR.
Your own naming conventions should be something that your organization develops with the assistance of one of our Certified Experts as part of your overall strategy to be more efficient. But once this new strategy is in place you unlock a very powerful tool that will save you time and money.
In the coming months we will be discussing more ways to fully utilize all of the advanced searching tools that are hidden within Teamwork Projects. See you next month for another OneMotion Teamwork Tip of the Month.