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The Differences Between Find and Search Operations

Find is a tool that consists of a direct query on a database, and allows users to query on a field-by-field basis. Find objects are accessible from anywhere in your Siebel application through the Search Center (binoculars), and allows users to perform queries on specific predefined fields linked to specific business components (such as querying for an employee's last name). Because Find directly queries the database instead of using indices, the results of these queries always match the actual data in the database. This makes Find appropriate for searching on transactional database tables that frequently are changing.

A Search operation by contrast, allows a simpler, broader search by not requiring the user to specify specific fields to search upon. Full text searches can be performed across multiple business components, fields and files with one operation. Search also gives you the option of searching through attachments. An important difference between search and find is the visibility applied to the results. For more information about the differences, see About Visibility Control Enforcement.

Table 5 lists the actions a user can take and whether those actions can be completed with Find or Search, or both, and the differences between the two.