Maximo search operators

Maximo search features are quite advanced but often neglected. By using the advanced search techniques described in this post it is possible to find relevant records easier and faster.

Equal

The equal ‘=’ operator can be used to find only records that match that a word or number exactly. In other words ‘=’ means “exact match”.
Example: Enter =123 to find any records with the exact characters 123 in the field. (Search results would not include numbers such as 0123 or 1234AB. If you enter just 123, without the =, search results would include 0123 and 1234AB.)

Not Equal

To search for all values that are not equal to a specific value enter ‘!=‘.
For example, typing !=WAPPR in the status field will retrieve all records that are not in WAPPR status.

Greater/Less

The ‘<‘ and ‘>‘ characters can also be used to search for records that are bigger or smaller than a specific value.

• Greater than ‘>‘: searches for any date after or number/word greater than the specified value.
  Example: Enter >1172 finds records of occurrences that have work order number greater than 1172.
• Less than ‘<‘: searches for any date before or number/word smaller than the specified value.
  Example: Enter <1172 finds records of occurrences that have work order number smaller than 1172.

List of values

You can use comma ‘,‘ operator to list the records that match with either of the values specified. It basically acts as the OR operator.
For example, typing WAPPR,COMP in the status field will retrieve all records that are in WAPPR or COMP status .

Wildcards

You can use a “wildcard” characters with letters or numbers to indicate you want to find records that begin with, end with, or contain those letters/numbers.
There are four characters you can use as a wildcard:

• Asterisk ‘*‘ or percent sign ‘%‘: stand for any number of characters (zero, one, or multiple) in the specified position.
  Example: Enter 123* to find records that start with 123, such as 123, 12345, 123ABC.
  Example: Enter *123 to find records that end in 123, such as 123, 5123, PUMP123.
  Example: Enter *123* to find records that contain 123, such as 123, 1234, PUMP123xy.
• Underscore ‘_‘ or question mark ‘?‘: stand for a single character in the specified position.
  Example: Enter 123_ to find any four‐character records that start with 123, such as 1234, 1230, 123g.
  Example: Enter or _18 to find any three‐character records that end with 18, such as 418, J18.

NULL Values

You can search for null and not null values by entering the following values into a search field on the Find tab:

• To search for a null value enter: ~null~
• To search for not null values enter: != ~null~

If your keyboard does not have the tilde ‘~’ character you may type enter this character by typing 126 on your numeric keypad while pressing the ‘Alt’ key.

Dates

A small additional tip for searching dates in the current month.
If you want to search for WO’s with scheduled start date less than today, you don’t need to type or select the whole date into the search field because Maximo automatically appends the current month and year in the where clause.
For example, if you search with <15, system will return all WO’s where scheduled start date before the 15th of the current month.

References

Understanding Search Methodologies
To Search For Records in a Maximo Database
Search for NULL values in Maximo applications