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How to Find Anything You Need with a Single Click in TeamPulse

Yordan Dimitrov is a Director of Software Engineering at Telerik by Yordan Dimitrov
July 30, 2013 Productivity 0 Comments


We had 3 things in mind when we decided to create the new TeamPulse. We wanted to make it simple, intuitive and adaptable. The reason behind those three was our one goal – to help you be more productive, so you can get your work done much faster with no effort.

That’s why we decided to create the new TeamPulse with built-in search capabilities that give you flexibility, and thus you can find what you are looking for in seconds and get things done faster.

On June 6th we released the new TeamPulse. Since then we provide you with three different approaches for searching – with the global search, the in-context search, and the filters. Let’s get a closer look and see when and how they can be helpful to you and what the difference between the three is in various scenarios.

In-context Search

The in-context search in TeamPulse allows you to look for relevant information within the content of your current view. For example, as a Product Owner you often need to enter new requirements for a specific project. But how can you be sure if such a user story is already in the backlog or not? With TeamPulse you can just go to the Backlog view and search for such a user story with the help of the in-context search. That means that by typing your query in the search bar, the in-context search shows only results from the content of the current view you are using.

Global Search

Unlike the in-context search, the global search is not limited only to the content of your current view. Instead, it runs the search through all your projects. However, it allows you to filter down by type of item.

Here’s an example. If you are a QA and you have just found a bug, you want to immediately log it. But before doing so, you need to make sure the bug isn’t already logged by another team member.

Let’s see how we can approach the situation first with the in-context search, and then with the global search.

With the in-context search first you need to filter the view’s content by item type, so the custom view displays only of bugs. Then, with the help of the in-context search you can type in to find relevant bugs.

With the global search all you need to do is to use the advanced options to set the type of items you want to search for, and then type a query to limit the results to items that consist of the respective word or phrase.

In this case, both searches can do the job for you, but the global search gives you what you need much faster.

Also with the global search you can easily search in all projects at the same time, instead of only in your current context. It also shows the results in a different window without changing anything in your current view.

Let’s look at a different scenario. Developers can easily search the Board for specific story if there are a lot of items on the Board. That is a very common case when a developer is working on several teams or projects at the same time.

Filters

There are specific cases when narrowing down the number of results to only a few is hard and that prevents you from finding the item you are looking for. In such scenarios the global search can’t be very helpful. The in-context search could help. But what if you are using a term in the query that is too generic and still too many items in the specific view have it in many of their fields? In situations like this we recommend you use the work item filters for searching. For the text fields such as descriptions, benefit, probability and others, you can create your own value for it, and thus use it as a search query. In that way you can search for items that:

  • - are equal to,
  • - are not equal to,
  • - start with,
  • - contain,
  • - do not contain, or
  • - end with
the query you have typed in.

 

Searchable Fields

Both the global and in-context searches in TeamPulse run your query through the item’s “id”, “name” and “description”. It also checks the “tfs id”.

This comes very handy when you want to find an item by its id. When you know the id, you can type it in the global search. And, voila, the item you’re looking for pops up.

In the example below I searched with a query “16633” and found the story with this ID, as well as a task that has a TFS id 16633.

Exact Match

With TeamPulse you can also search for exact matches by typing your query in quotes. In that way only results that contain the words from your query in that same sequence will show up. View figures 1 & 2 to see the difference between a regular and an exact match search.

Figure 1 – shows the results of a regular search

Figure 2 – shows the results of an exact match search

Press “S” for a Quick Search

Finding what you need in TeamPulse literally takes a click. Just press “S” and the global search is ready and waiting for you to use it.

 

Tell us what you think about the TeamPulse search.

We are trying to build TeamPulse in a way that meets your requirements. So every time you share your feedback with us, it helps us get a step closer to what you truly need.

How do you like the global and in-context searches? Is there anything you feel is missing? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.

Thanks!




Yordan Dimitrov

Product Manager, Agile Project Management Division at Telerik

TeamPulse
Yordan Dimitrov is a Director of Software Engineering at Telerik
About the Author

Yordan Dimitrov

Yordan is a Director of Software Engineering at Telerik. 

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