Searching records to find information easily and creating reports that provide pertinent information are the two critical features for managing cemetery property records. The Pontem Cemetery Data Manager includes the ability to search and filter in two ways to achieve this.

The Quick Search filter criteria is a small set of fields for filtering commonly performed in the respective workspace.  The Advanced search provides you with more advanced filtering options.

Each Primary Task Workspace has its own unique Quick Search and Advanced Search. The filter criteria differ in each Primary Task area, but the steps to perform a search are same. 

Manage Graves:

Manage Address Book:

Manage Occupants:

Quick Search

The Quick Search feature allows you to filter your workspace records based on the specific values you enter in the filter criteria. As with most data filters, you can perform a broad search by specifying only one filter criteria or a narrower search by specifying multiple filter criteria.

Last name filters perform a “begins with” matching. This means that if you are unsure of the spelling or if a last name is quite lengthy, you only need to enter the first few letters to filter for all names that begin with the letters you entered.

To perform a quick search:

1. Enter the filter criteria of one or more fields
2. Click the Search button

If you have multiple cemeteries you can clear the Cemetery setting to filter on all cemeteries. Simply click inside the field and use the Backspace key on your keyboard to remove the cemetery name.

Advanced Search

The Advanced Search is a robust tool allowing users to search by one or more criteria with the objective of retrieving a broad array of records or a narrow select group of records to work with or review.

Each Primary Task workspace has unique filtering options, respective to the workspace focus. As Manage Graves is the most robust workspace, the search filter found there is the most expansive, allowing a search based on select criteria from property, contact, and occupant records.

There are multiple tabs across the top of the Advanced Search filter. Each tab contains a variety of optional filtering criteria. For the data associated with a drop-down menu of specific values, the advanced search filter allows users to select one or more specific values from the menu list or set the filter to include all menu values.

Manage Graves:

Manage Address Book:

Manage Occupants:

To perform an advanced search:

1. Set the search criteria of one or more filtering options
2. Click the OK button

If more than one search criteria are entered, the resulting record list will consist of only records that match ALL search criteria. The exception to that rule is for a Notes keyword or phrase search. With Note filter criteria, you can designate a ‘Match All Fields’ search or a ‘Match Any Field’ search. Choosing ‘Match All Fields’ will force the filtering to match all keywords and phrases defined. Choosing ‘Match Any Field’ will force the filtering to match at least one of the keywords or phrases defined.

Saving Search Criteria Filters

If the search criteria you want to define is something you will repeat on a regular basis, you can save the defined criteria as a custom filter that can be retrieved for future use.  Look for the Save Filter button in the lower left-hand corner.

Saving a custom filter:

1. Enter the desired search criteria
2. Click the Save Filter button
3. Define a name for the custom filter
4. Click the OK button
5. An information message will confirm the filter was saved; click the OK button
6. Click the OK button to execute the search

Retrieving and Using a saved custom filter:

1. Open the Advanced Search dialog window
2. Click the drop-down arrow on the Selected Filter box
3. Select the filter desired
4. Click the OK button to execute the search

Deleting a saved custom filter:

1. Open the Advanced Search dialog window
2. Click the drop-down arrow on the Selected Filter box
3. Select the filter desired
4. Click the Delete Filter button
5. Click Yes to confirm your action
6. Click OK to clear the Information message