Searching in Penn Community

See below for information on getting started with the new Penn Community UI.

Searching for Records

  • Click the "Hamburger menu" in the upper left corner.
  • Select the "User Search" menu.
  • Select "Search" from the User Search dropdown.

HINT: You can add the Search "card" to your home screen. To do so:

  • Make sure that the left nav menu is closed, or it will obscure your work. If you can see the options, look for the little "X" at the top left of the left nav bar, and click the X to close the nav bar.
  • Click the "Edit" Button in the top-right area of the gray portion of the screen.
  • Click Quick Links, then click "Add Card" and select "Search" from the list. This will put the search "card" on your home page so that you won't have to navigate the menu each time.

Common Searches

  • By PennID (enter 8 digits, exact search)
  • By PennKey (exact search)
  • By first name/last name combination (starts with, equals, contains)
  • By source (leaving sources unselected will search all sources)

Example: If you are searching for John Lee, and you know that your intended target is a student, you can select the "Student (Pennant)" source to return fewer results to work with. This can be especially useful if you want to eliminate a large population like Alumni.

Working with the Search Results

Search results on name may return one, a few, or many records. If you can easily find the record you're looking for, great. If the search returns more than 10 results, other options are available to help:

Filter the search results

The search results ofter options to filter the results to further constrain the results set. For example, if you’re trying to find a specific John Lee, and the individual can tell you they were born in 1987, you can type “1987” into the DOB field and constrain the results to only those John Lee records with DOB in 1987.  Similarly, if you want to find John Lee records who  were Alumni in the Wharton Graduate division, you could type “WG” in your John Lee search results, and see only those that have “WG%” somewhere in the description. Typing “student” would constrain to records that contain “student” somewhere in the text of the “sources” record. The filter on the "Sources" column will look for your text string anywhere in the source row.

Change the paging

At the bottom right of the first page of search results, there are options to change the number of records shown on the page from the default 10 to 25, 50 or 100. Note that if your search returns more than 300 results, you will have to refine your search to get a full results set.

Decoding the codes

To document (Note: we're still working on the best way to provide translation for codes; coming, still TBD. Feedback on options welcome.)

FAQs

Q. Where are the affiliations?
A. In the new Penn Community we are moving away from the concept of the "affiliation code" and focusing on the "source" of the record. The search results will show you the source(s), the active/inactive status of that source, the name associated with that source, and a piece of organizational data from that source.

Q. Why isn't the full DOB available?
A. DOB is an identity attribute we are working to de-emphasize. There will be a way to see full DOB, if required, on subsequent screens.   

Q. The Search doesn't seem to be working for me, but it works for my colleagues, what's up?
A. We have seen this when using older versions of browsers (specifically Firefox). Please ensure that your browser(s) are updated to the latest versions and try again.