Search in the control panel: how to find any setting without knowing where it is

Why you need search in the control panel

A small office's PBX has a few numbers and a few extensions. The PBX of a yeshiva, a chain of stores or a chesed organization has hundreds of items: numbers, extensions, menus, queues, hunt groups, voicemail boxes, calling cards and time groups. Each one sits on its own screen. When someone asks "where does this number go?" or "where's the ring time setting?", you need to know which screen to look in — and sometimes which account, too.

It gets even more complicated for anyone who manages several accounts: an institution with several branches, or someone who looks after the PBX of several customers. A customer calls and says "there's a problem with our number", and without search you have to guess whose number it is, sign in to the account, open the Numbers screen and scroll.

Search solves this in one line. Type a number, a name or a word, and you see right away what was found, what type it is and whose it is. One click opens the setting itself.

Two modes: quick and advanced

The screen has two buttons at the top of the panel: Quick and Advanced.

Quick search looks at name, description and ID. It fits most cases: "Office", "Billing", a phone number, an extension number. Type at least two characters and click Search or press Enter. By default all setting types are checked, and unchecking some narrows the search.

Advanced search loads the full data of the setting type you chose and searches every single field. It's meant for questions like "which numbers route to this queue?" or "where does this email address appear?" — questions whose answer isn't in the item's name but inside its settings.

What you can type

Search understands several kinds of information, and you don't need to choose in advance which one you're typing:

• A phone number — all of it or part of it. "2705140" will also find 077-2705140.
• A name or description — "Office", "Night menu", "Dining hall".
• An ID — the internal number of an item in the PBX, if you know it.
• A username or email address — when you're looking for a person.
• The name of a setting or a screen — "Ring time", "Voicemail", "Call recording".

The list of types it searches is broad too: numbers, extensions, routing codes, queues, hunt groups, menus, users, calling cards and card groups, remote access, voicemail boxes, conference rooms, paging groups, pickup groups, time groups, recording groups, campaigns, sound files, hold music, template menus, prefixes, speed dials, URLs, rate plans and customers.

Dashes, spaces and typos

Phone numbers are written in all kinds of ways: with a dash, with a space, with nothing. Search clears away these differences before it compares. "077-2705140", "077 2705140" and "0772705140" all find the same number.

And what if you got one digit wrong? It happens a lot, especially when copying a card number or a phone number from a note. When there's no exact match, search tries a close match: it looks for items that differ from what you typed by one or two characters, and shows them sorted from the closest. With a very short search it doesn't guess, because there almost everything is "close".

The result: even if you typed a calling card number with a missing digit, there's a good chance you'll see the right card at the top of the list. Always look at the result and make sure it really is the item you were looking for.

How to read a result row

Each result is made up of three parts:

• What was found — the type of setting (number, extension, code, queue), its name and its description.
• Whose it is — "My account," or the customer's name and ID.
• What to do — a button that opens the setting.

Results are sorted so that what's in your own account appears first, followed by what was found in customers' accounts. That way, when you search for "Office", you don't have to go through twenty accounts to find your own office.

Opening with one click, even in a customer's account

A result from your own account opens directly: the button is called Open, and the screen moves to the setting with its editor open.

On a result from a customer's account, the button is called Switch to Customer and Open. Clicking it does two things one after the other: it enters the customer's account, exactly as on the Customers screen, and then opens the setting there. The top bar shows which account you're in, and from there you can go back to your own account at any moment.

The window opens right away with what the search already found, and switching to the account and loading the rest of the settings finish in the background. You can start reading right away. You can edit as soon as the text "Loading full settings" disappears.

The "Also search customer accounts" option appears only for those who have sub-customers. Unchecking it limits the search to your own account only, which is also faster.

There's a limit to the number of accounts scanned in one search. Anyone with more customers than the limit will see a clear message about it on the screen — search doesn't quietly "hide" results. In that case, enter the specific customer's account and search inside it.

Searching for a setting, not an item

Often you're not looking for a specific item but for a place: "where do I set how long the extension rings?", "where do I turn on recording?". For this, quick search shows a Settings and Screens card above the results, with all the settings and screens whose names match what you typed.

• A screen in the menu — a screen whose name matches. "Open Screen" takes you to it.
• A setting — a setting inside one of the screens. Under its name it says which screen and which part of the editor it sits in, and next to it there's a short explanation of what it does.

Next to a setting there's also a button such as Choose Queue. It shows all the items of that type in the account, and next to each one the value of that setting for it — for example, the ring time in each of the queues. That way you see at a glance where the value differs from the rest, without opening ten editors.

From there you can open the editor of a specific item right on that setting, or click Link and copy a direct link to it. The link is useful when you want to tell a colleague or a customer "go here and change this", without explaining how to get there.

What isn't shown in the results

Search respects each user's permissions. A setting type you don't have permission to see doesn't appear in the list of types, doesn't come back in the results, and even a direct request for it is rejected by the server. This is true in both modes. So a secretary who has permission only for extensions and voicemail boxes won't see rate plans or invoices in search.

Even within what you're allowed to see, some values aren't shown: PIN codes and passwords don't appear in the results or on the settings card. Search helps you find a place, not reveal secrets.

Advanced search: searching inside the settings

Quick search knows the item's name. Advanced search knows what's inside it. When what you know is an internal value — a destination, an email address, a queue number, a time limit — this is the right mode.

Here's how to use it:

1. In the panel, click Advanced Search. At first no type is checked and nothing is loaded. That's on purpose, so that no needless requests are sent to the PBX.
2. Check a setting type, for example Number. Its data loads in the background. Next to the type it says "Loading…", and when loading is done, it shows how many rows were loaded.
3. Type in the box. Search runs as you type, across every field in the loaded data. There's no button to click.

In each result, under the name, you'll see Where Found chips: the name of the field where the text was found, and an excerpt of the value with the word highlighted. That way you understand right away why the result came up. If you searched for a queue number, you'll see exactly which field of the number it appears in — the main destination, the no-answer destination, or something else.

Scope, loading and cache

By default, advanced search looks only in your own account. Checking "Also search customer accounts" widens it, and every type that's already checked reloads with the new scope.

Keep in mind that every checked type is a separate request to the PBX for each account. One type in your own account is one request. The same type with two customers is three requests. So check only what you need.

Loaded data is kept for a few minutes, so you can try several searches in a row without waiting. If you changed something a moment ago, the Reload from PBX button pulls the data again.

What search does not do

To avoid disappointment, it's good to know the limits too:

• It doesn't search inside calls. Who called and when — you find that in Call History, which has its own screen with search by number and by date range. Recordings are found there too.
• Quick search doesn't look in every field. It searches the name, the description and the IDs. Searching by an internal value is done in advanced mode.
• It doesn't bypass permissions. What you're not allowed to see on the regular screen, you're not allowed to see in search either.
• It doesn't change anything. Search only finds and opens. The change itself is made in the regular editor, with the regular save.

Everyday examples

A yeshiva secretary and a new student. A father calls and asks why his son isn't getting calls on his card. The secretary remembers only part of the card number. She types what she remembers and sees the card and its group. One click, and she's in the settings.

A chain manager with three branches. One branch reports that calls at midday go to voicemail. The manager searches for the name of the time group, "Midday", sees right away which account it's in, opens it and sees in the editor who uses it. From there it's a short way to the number's call route.

A system administrator changing an email address. The bookkeeper has left, and her address needs to be removed everywhere. In advanced search, check voicemail boxes, recording groups and users, type the address, and you see every place it appears. Nothing gets missed.

A question about a setting. "How long does it ring here before it goes to voicemail?" Type "Ring time", click the button next to the setting, and see the value for every extension. If one stands out, fix it right there.

Tips for better searching

• Use clear names. Quick search is only as good as the names and descriptions you gave. "Queue 3" won't help a year from now. "Billing queue — parents" will.
• Start with quick search. In most cases it's enough. Switch to advanced only when the answer is inside the settings.
• In advanced mode, check only a few. One or two types at a time. It's faster and saves requests.
• A short search returns a lot. "10" will show up almost everywhere. Add more digits or a word.
• Save links. For a setting you change often, copy a link to it and save it in your bookmarks.