Searching Work Items
You can search for work items using:
Here are some search tips that apply to the search feature in general:
| Tip | Description |
|---|---|
| Press the Enter key to initiate a search. | You may press the Enter key instead of the Search button to initiate the screen action. |
| You will be notified of deleted work items in your search results. | If a work item has been deleted but is listed in your search results, the system displays a message that the work item has been deleted when you attempt to view the details of the work item. |
| The search is refreshed each time you access the Search tab. | The search results and keywords are refreshed (updated) each time you select the Search tab for viewing, and the browser will refresh the page results. Your results remain displayed until you perform another search.. Once the browser is closed or you have logged off, the search results are not persisted. |
| Work item ID searches | All Summary views, with the exception of the Release and Iteration Summary views, allow to search by ID number. Enter the ID number of the work item (excluding the tag or prefix) in the box under the ID column and press Enter or click the Filter button. Use the following delimiters with a specific number to refine your ID search: <= , >= , = , < , > . |
Search tab
As your projects and iterations evolve, you may need to quickly search and locate a specific work item or discussion related to the work item. Rally Search tab lets you sift through your work items and discussions and return a display of items that are related to your query.
Searching work items can be conducted from multiple locations in Rally:
- Get more specific results by specifying the project, work item type, and any relevant keywords.
- Click the Search button.
- Click on any work item listed in the Search Result window to go to the Detail view of the work item.
- Click the Search tab to return to your search results. Your search remains displayed until another search is entered or you log off the system.
Keyword searches
Search keywords are one or more alphanumeric words or numbers that define the criteria for a search. Enter search keywords into the Search field to limit the number of work items in your search results. You may also refer to search tips that apply to the search feature in general.
You can search the following:
- Name
- Description
- Notes
- Discussion posts
- Tags
- Custom strings
- Text fields
| Tip | Description |
|---|---|
| Searches are not case sensitive. | You may enter keywords in upper case or lower case characters. All letters, regardless of how you type them, are understood as lower case. Example: User is interpreted as user and will match on variations of case, such as User user UseR USER. Note: The search box for Story Burndown and Story Cumulative ARE case sensitive. |
| All keywords are included as search criteria. | By default, the search engine returns items that include all of your keywords. There is no need to include "and" between keywords. Example: edit defects is interpreted as edit AND defects. |
| Search for complete phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks. | Keywords enclosed in double quotes ("like this") are treated as phrases, and will appear together in search results exactly as you have typed them. Phrase searches are especially useful when searching for work item names. There is no need to include quotation marks around single keywords, even when mixing single keywords and phrases in the same search request. Examples: defect suite "defect suite" description. |
| Boolean searches are supported. | Use the OR and ! (not) operators between keywords to expand the possibility of search results. Example: Searching apples !oranges will return any results that contain apples but do not contain oranges. |
| Partial string (substring) matches are not supported. | Example, if you search for arm, you will not get results for charm, army, or alarm. |
| Matching occurs on expanded forms of keywords. | The search finds work items containing various forms of the keywords you enter in the Search field. Examples: edit returns results for edit or editing or editor, child returns results for child or children. |
| Use characters and numbers in your keywords. | Keywords may contain any combination of letters [a-z] and numbers [0-9]. Using special characters (except for . and ") splits the keywords into phrases. |
| Enclosing hyphenated keywords with double quotes affects search results. | If you use double quotes around a hyphenated keyword, the keyword will be interpreted as a phrase in which words must appear together in the exact order that they do in the hyphenated keyword (the hyphen is ignored). If you omit double quotes around a hyphenated keyword, the search will match the portions of the keywords before and after the hyphen. In this case, results will be returned if both words appear in the work item, but not necessarily together. Examples: e-mail returns results for e mail or e-mail; work-product returns results for work item or work-item; setup-tab returns results containing both setup and tab. |
| Wildcards are not supported. Using special characters returns unexpected results. | Using any special characters (except for . and ") matches separately on all portions of the keyword delimited by special characters. These portions are treated as phrases. If you omit double quotes around the keyword, results will be returned providing all phrases appear in the work item, although not necessarily together in the same word. Examples: cl?ck returns results for work items that include one or more words containing cl AND one or more words containing ck. cl?$ck*ab returns results for work items that include one or more words containing cl AND one or more words containing ck AND one or more words containing ab. " 3*5 " returns results for work items that include the exact Phrase: 3*5 . If you include a period (.) in the keyword, the keyword will be interpreted literally for an exact match, as if you had enclosed it with double quotes. Example: dev.com returns results for work items that include the exact phrase: dev.com (such as Rallydev.com.) If you include a double quote (") in the keyword, the fragment before it will be considered as search criteria but the fragment following it will be ignored. Example: cl"ck returns results for work items that include one or more words containing cl. |
Custom filtering
Custom filtering allows you to string together multiple query criteria and apply operators in a preferred order of execution. Rally supports Boolean AND OR as custom conditions. Rally does not currently support the NOT operator. The Custom Conditions apply to your query criteria after the criteria is defined. Group your criteria according to the operator order entered in the Custom Condition Grouping field.
Note: Custom reports also have their own custom filtering. See Custom Reports for more information.
The Show results when: field is activated when two or more conditions have been added.
- Click the Add Condition button to add query conditions. As soon as there are two conditions, you can select one of the following conditional operator options:
- Select the statement that represents the intent of your query.
- ALL of the conditions below are met: Performs a Boolean AND of the listed conditions.
- ANY of the conditions below are met: Performs a Boolean OR of the listed conditions.
- CUSTOM: Allows you to string multiple Boolean operators and conditions together for complex queries.
- If you select CUSTOM, the Custom Condition Group field display. Use this field to enter Boolean conditions.
Examples
| Custom Condition | Description |
|---|---|
| (1 AND 2) OR 3 | The query returns records that match both of the first two filter conditions, or the third condition. Apply the following criteria to a defect custom view:
|
The result displays all defects in the API package that are owned by Joe, or all defects with a severity of Crash/Data Loss. This allows Joe to locate his defects that he needs to address in the API package and also a listing of high severity defects which Joe can also help resolve.
| 1 AND (2 OR 3) | Using the same Custom Conditions shown above, use this custom condition syntax to return a result displaying all defects that Joe owns that are either in the API package or are of a Crash/Data Loss severity. |
| (1 AND 2) OR (3 AND 4) | This query returns all records that match the first two filter conditions or the final two conditions. Apply the following criteria to a story custom view:
|
The resulting display lists all stories in the API package that are defined, or all stories in the Integrations package that are completed. Developers can use this query to identify stories to be worked on in the API package, and stories in the Integrations package that are ready for code review.
| (1 OR 2 OR 3) AND 4 | This query returns all records that match any of the first three values in addition to the fourth condition. Apply this criteria to a task custom view:
|
The resulting display lists all tasks in Project A, B, or C that are owned by Joe. This query is helpful when tracking work across multiple projects.