Microsoft Word Search Considerations

As part of Supplier Contract Management functionality, you can optionally provide certain users, such as contract specialists, the capability to search from Microsoft Word for additional clauses in the PeopleSoft clause library. They can perform the search without exiting Microsoft Word or signing on to the PeopleSoft system. This is useful, for example, when you might need to manually select alternate clauses versus using a wizard question and rule to include the clause as part of the generation process. This Microsoft Word integration is accomplished using XML messaging that is partially delivered with the PeopleSoft system. These topics discuss:

  • File configuration for Microsoft Word searches using Research task panes.

  • Search limitations.

Using the Microsoft Word version that resides on the local system, you can perform searches against a PeopleSoft database for clauses and bind variables. After receiving search results, you can insert clauses or bind variables directly into the Microsoft Word document that you have open. When you insert the clause or bind using this method, the content control tags identifying it are also included which enables the system to better recognize when you include new content from the library into the document.

The search function used by Microsoft Word uses synchronous XML messages to integrate with the Supplier Contract Management system. The messages are read by the messaging gateway that processes the searches in the PeopleSoft Supplier Contract Management database. The system returns search results to the Microsoft Word - Research task pane. Administrators install the necessary search functions on selected client machines as part of the setup process.

Before you can use the search function, contract or system administrators must configure the search program configuration file prior to using it with Microsoft Word. The configuration file specifies the gateway information to link Microsoft Word and the Supplier Contract Management system.

The search capability from Microsoft Word to PeopleSoft does not require a separate sign on to the PeopleSoft system. It uses the default local messaging node and the PeopleSoft user who is defined for that node to run clause and bind variable searches. Therefore, when you enable searching, you enable users to search for any clause or bind variable defined in the database.

While working with documents using Microsoft Word, you can perform searches against PeopleSoft databases. Using search results, you can locate clauses and bind variables that exist in the document authoring system and insert them into the current clause or contract document.

When you search for clauses using an authored document in Microsoft Word, the size of the XML format information can exceed limits on the client side when it's too large. Therefore, the search result is limited by the PeopleSoft system to results with twenty instances.

Note: Even when clauses contain small amounts of text, the system can still send a large amount of hidden formats and styles in addition to the object content.

When the search reaches this limit, the system displays a warning to you within the Microsoft Word - Research task pane that states: '*** Searching on above keyword, resulted in more than 20 matching clauses -- returning only the first 20. Please refine your search criteria to narrow the results. ***'. To resolve this issue, you can search for a more specific string to render fewer than 20 results in the result.

Note: When you insert clauses into documents, it's possible to have situations where a clause and its content control is inserted within another clause's content control. This will not cause an error or warning and you can still check in the file to the PeopleSoft system. When you check the document into the PeopleSoft system, the document administrator can use the Document Modification Summary link on the Document Management page to view new clauses that have been inserted as well as changes or deletes to existing clauses.