You have 2 options when searching for documents, the basic and advanced options. 


When completing a search we suggest to be as broad as possible with your search terms and departments to understand how your files have been archived in the past. 


We have found that some organisations have had staff enter documents differently over the years of using the system, so if you're new to SmartSoft we suggest familiarising yourself with your archive structure to assist searching for documents.


Step 1 


In the top menu click "Search". Ensure you have chosen 'basic' as your search preference.


  • Description: This is the title of the document, the details of it. It is suggested we are as detail as possible when creating a document to help us in any future search.
  • Alpha: This will help us narrow our search and can be very helpful, for example, when having bundle documents like payroll where we can put the alpha range to determine the last names of the employees included in the files.
  • Number: This can assist us when, for example, we have files bundled with different years.
  • Any Department: Departments such as Administration, Finance, Student Records, staff.
  • Any Document Type: This will show us the categories within each department.
  • Start date & End date: This is useful if we know what years the documents were from, when searching the year is suggested we set the whole year from the 1st of January to the 31 of December.


Step 2 


Enter the search terms for the document you wish to find and click "Search"



Step 3


The results will show the location of where all the archives are located, the box that contains the document, the dates, the alpha and number range and the department and document type. 



If no results are shown try searching by year, department or document type. For example: I am looking for a student's transfer documents. His last name is Thompson and he got transferred in 2006. If I enter the last name no results are found. 



If I enter the year from 01/01/2006 to 31/12/2006 I get results but there are too many, so I can also choose Student Files as the department and I will get the below: