Wildcards

Wildcards are particular symbols that the system will recognize as "substitutes" for another set of characters. Wildcards are useful when performing text searches when you do not know the exact text that you are looking for. In Millennium, wildcards are available for use with any free text or Value-based Lookup table field on most Search, Data Maintenance, or Lookup Table Maintenance forms. They are not available for use with data fields that are maintained through the use of list boxes (drop-down lists).

The use of wildcards in the Millennium Reporting World differs slightly from the use of wildcards in the Profiles and Events Worlds. Wildcard use in the Reporting World is covered in Understanding Criteria.

Within the Profiles World, wildcards can be used with any Data Maintenance form that contains a Name Lookup field, including Correspondence, Employment, Relation, Giving and Dues. The Name Lookup forms require a partial value in the name field, before the other fields on the form will be used to narrow the search, and using wildcards when searching by ID number will not return any matches.

Within the Events World, wildcards can be used with the Events Search screen, as well as any Data Maintenance form that contains a Name Lookup field. This includes Registration, Event Guest, Event Solicitor, Speaker and Organizers.

Value-based lookup data fields use Search boxes. The use of wildcards is allowed when searching for a particular code/value to enter into a data field. These are located on all Data Maintenance forms that reference one or more value-based lookup tables, as well as the Profiles search screen, the registrant constituent search screen, the correspondence constituent search screen, and the Lookup Table Maintenance forms for the following lookup tables: Attribute Types, Circle Definition, Campaign Division, Institutions, Chart of Accounts, Solicitations, Dues Batch Number, and Giving Batch Number.

When entering an object in those circumstances, you should enter wildcard symbols in connection with specific text to select rows with varying data.

To use a wildcard, substitute for the text you do not know one of the following characters:

Character	Will Match in Data
_   (underscore)	Any one and only one character
% (percent)	Any number of characters (including none)

Wildcard Rules and Examples

The following chart gives several examples of the way the system will handle and interpret wild cards.

Note: In the examples below the 'x' can be any alphanumeric character, but if using only wild card characters and numbers in an ID search field, no records will be returned.

Substituting For	Object	Passing Data	Failing Data	Defined
Single Character (_)	xx_x	xxxx, xx3x, xxBx	xxbbx, xxx	Returns all strings that match the first, second, and fourth characters, allowing any character to be in the third position.
	Multiple Characters (%)	x%x	xx, xBx, xBBBx	xbc, Xxx
Returns all strings that begin and end with your specified character, allowing any character(s) to reside in the middle.		Multiple Characters (%)	%x%	Axb, aaxbb, abcxa
abcx, xabc	Returns all strings that contain your specified character anywhere in the result.		Multiple Characters (%)	%xb
cdefgxb, cxb	xbx, x	Returns all strings that end with your specified character.		Multiple Characters (%)