An Introduction to Remembered Lists

Remembered Lists allow you to name subsets of Documents from your database and work with them separate from the rest of your data. You can search for a set of Documents in your askSam file and store all of these Documents in a Remembered List, or select individual Documents - from your database or from a search request - and place these in a Remembered List.

For example, let's say you have a database of magazine and newspaper articles on the subject of Internet Technology. You have collected these articles for years and now it's time to give a presentation on the subject of "Changes in Internet Search Engines Over the Years". You can search your database for all articles containing the phrase "Search Engine" and remember these items. Once they are remembered you can go to the remembered subset and do searches for more detailed information within the "Search Engine" subset. This saves you from having to search your whole file when you are only dealing a certain topic.

Every file contains a default remembered list but you can create multiple remembered lists if needed. For example in a database of job applicants, you could have a Remembered List of programmers, a Remembered List of sales/marketing applications, a Remembered List of Technicians, etc. When you are looking for an applicant in any of these areas, you can switch to the appropriate Remembered List and work with just the specific Documents you require. (we'll discuss this more next month).

Remembered lists are a powerful way to extract important information from your file and work specifically with that data.

There are many benefits to saving a set of documents in a Remember list. Once you have created a Remembered list you can...

Ÿ     Remember Documents over a period of time or all at once

Ÿ     Search the Remembered Documents

Ÿ     Move through the Remembered Documents

Ÿ     Edit the Remembered Documents.

Ÿ     Print the Remembered Documents.

Ÿ     Export the Remembered Documents.

Ÿ     Create and save Stored Searches to search the Remembered List

Ÿ     Run a Report on the Documents in the Remembered List.

Ÿ     Send a Mail Merge letter or Email Merge Message to the Remembered List.

Ÿ     Delete the Remembered Documents.

How does the Remembered List Work?

Adding Documents to Your List:

Since Remembered lists are stored as part of the askSam file they can be created in one askSam session or you can build them over time. You do not have to create your Remembered list all at once. Remembered lists are a great place to store documents as you find them. Each file has a default Remembered List and is named using your User Name and Computer Name. This is the active default list unless you have created your own lists or deleted the default list.

To use the Remembered List you first have to add documents to your list. Documents can be added to your list in a variety of ways. You can use one or a combination of these methods to create your remembered subset.

1. Save individual documents to the list

Any document being viewed on the askSam screen can be added to the default remembered list by left mouse clicking the Remember icon in the askSam Tool Bar.

Once this icon is selected the current document (the one currently in the askSam Work Area) is saved to the Default Remembered List and the icon becomes depressed.

All Remembered Documents can be recognized by this icon. To remove a Remembered item from list simply click the Remembered icon again.

For example, if you know you need to add the last document in your file to the Remembered list, browse to the last document with the "Go To Last Document in File" icon at the bottom left of the askSam screen,

and click the Remembered icon on the tool Bar. That document is added to your Remembered List.

2. Save entire search results to the list

You can save the entire results of an askSam search to the Remembered List. This makes it easy to locate groups of documents and automatically save them to the Remembered list. Once a search is complete you can use the Remember All Icon located on the Search Results Bar (the third icon from the end) to save the results to the Remembered List.

For Example, if I do a search in my file for all documents containing the word "BEACH*" I retrieve six documents. When I left mouse click on the Remember All Icon in the Search Results Bar askSam displays the Remember All Dialog. "Add To Remember List" is selected as a default and the default Remember list is listed in the box to the right. Choose OK to add all the documents from the search results to the Remembered list. This option will append to the already existing list. If you want to overwrite the list and start a new list choose the second option - "Overwrite Remembered List".

Note: Items that have been Remembered will display the Remembered icon at the far left of the search results screen.

3. Save individual documents from a search to the list.

You can also select individual items from a search list to Remember. This makes it easy to perform a search and select specific documents for your Remembered List. Once a search is complete you can click on a search result or select multiple documents (CTRL+LEFT CLICK) and then use the Remember icon on the Search Results Bar (the second icon from the end) to add them to your Remembered list.

For example, if I wanted to add to my Remembered list of documents containing the word "Beach*" (from example 2 above), I could search for documents with other words (i.e. "Island" or "Water" or "Cruise"). I could then select only the ones I wanted to add to the Remembered list. Once I have selected the items to Remember, I left mouse click on the Remember icon in the Search Results Bar and askSam displays the Remember All Dialog. "Add To Remember List" is selected as a default and the default Remember list is listed in the box to the right. Choose OK to add the selected documents from the search results to the Remembered list. This option will append to the already existing list. If you want to overwrite the list and start a new list choose the second option - "Overwrite Remembered List".

Note: Items the have been Remembered will display the Remembered icon at the far left of the search results screen.

Accessing Your Remembered List

Once you have selected the items for your Remembered list you are ready to use your list. askSam has a separate area where you can access and work with your Remembered documents. To access your Remembered items, select the Remembered Subset from the list of document types at the bottom left of the askSam screen.

Once inside the Remembered Subset askSam commands, such as searching, work only on the selected set of documents (The Remembered List). You will see a few changes to the screen that show you that you are in the Remembered List and not the regular askSam documents.

a. The Search button is changed to "Search Remembered"

b. The Document Type button now displays "Remembered" instead of "Documents"

c. The status bar shows the number of Remembered items opposed to the number of documents.

Performing a search inside the Remembered area will search only the items placed in the Remembered subset. For example, if I now want to search all of my Remembered items for "hotel*", I simply type the word on the search line, press enter and askSam searches my subset of data for my search term.

Note: Most askSam menu items are not effected by the switch to Remembered. Other items work only on the Remembered subset and not the entire askSam file. The main menu that is effected by the switch to the Remembered subset is the Actions menu. Items such as SEARCH, OTHER SEARCHES, SORT, FIELD, SHOW and COUNT WORD OR PHRASES will search and display only items in the Remembered subset. Other items can not be used in the Remembered area. If you select one of these items askSam will automatically exit the Remembered area.

Clearing Your Remembered List

To remove items from the Remembered list...

a. Single Document - With the document you wish to remove from the Remembered List on the screen click the Remembered icon at the top of the askSam screen. This can be performed in the Remembered area or in the regular documents areas and will remove the current document from the Remembered list.  

b. Multiple Documents - Perform a search inside the remembered area, select the documents to remove from the list (ctrl+click) and click the Remember icon (second icon from the end). This will remove only the selected items from the Remembered List.

c. All Documents - To clear the Remembered list of all documents, select DOCUMENT -> REMEMBER -> CLEAR ACTIVE REMEMBERED LIST. This will remove all Remembered items from the list. You can use your default list over and over.

Note: Deleting an item inside the Remembered list will delete that item from the askSam file. To remove an item from the Remembered list and not delete it from the file use one of the options above.

Look in next month's Surf Report for more on using Remembered lists. In February we will look at how to create, work with and manage multiple Remembered Lists.

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