How does setting Personal Criteria work? Throughout the site there are comprehensive search capabilities. The User sets criteria and then clicks on 'Show' to display a Results Table limited by the Search Criteria. An example of a complex search that uses criteria is found at Information:Inquiry. Each User can customize his/her own set of personal Criteria values. They are saved and reloaded for the individual when subsequent use of the page requires it or they use the Reset function.
First some terminology. There are different levels of 'Default' criteria that prepopulate or prefill in the search criteria on a specific page.
Internal Criteria Default criteria set by the manufacturer of the software. For example the initial setting for pulldowns is 'All'.
Site Criteria Criteria set by an Administrator of the site. Also known as database criteria. If set by the Administrator these values supercede the internal criteria. The Administrator must be careful, as these values will apply to all Users and all the websites that use the same database. (currently only Pensra website uses the Pensra data.).
Personal Criteria Criteria set by the individual User. A User can have up to 4 different personal criteria. This criteria supersedes the site or internal criteria. This criteria is available when the User is logged on.
Why would you care?
By setting your own personal criteria search values, you do not have to enter them or reselect them every time you visit a search page. So for example, if you are primarily interested in refereeing the lower level younger youth matches in a single community, you can set the the Level to 'U08' and "U09" and "U10" and "U11" and the Class to "Competitive" and the City to "Foster City" and you can avoid sifting through all the other matches.
Selecting multiple choices.
 and  toggles between the capability to select multiple choices in a pulldown. How to select multiple choices is browser specific, but often involves depressing the CTRL key while making selections
On which pages can a default criteria be set?
Look for the 'Show' button. Look to the right of the 'Show' button. If you see a  or  or  icon, that query page can have personal criteria set. The personal criteria are associated with your User Sitename when you log on. So of course, if you don't log on, the system won't know what set of personal criteria to use. When not logged on, the system uses a database wide default criteria.
How do I set my Personal Default Criteria?
- How many different Personal Criteria do you want? One is the default. If you want more, visit Services:Profile-Preferences-Criteria and select and save a number between 1 and 4.
- On the page of interest, toggle (repeatedly click) the icon till you get the Personal_1 icon to appear
- Perform the search or query that you want to be your default. As the example, select 'B' for Gender or 'U13' for Level. Pay attention to the date field. You may want to avoid 'Today' as a date as the first date, or you may really want to use 'Today'. You can also use other relative terms such as +1 week, Yesterday, Last week, -3 days or Sunday
- Click on 'Show' to perform the search.
- Is the Results Table reflective of what you wanted to see? Save the criteria search by clicking on the Save icon
 to the right of the 'Show' button.
If your Profile:Preferences are set for more than 1 Criteria, you will be offered Personal Criteria_n only after Personal Criteria_n-1 has been set.
- Save Icon
- Click "Show". Then click to save the search criteria as your personal_n criteria.
Congratulations.
You have now saved your Personal Criteria. Whenever you visit this search page, your criteria will prepopulate the search criteria boxes at the top of the page. You can, of course, edit and save any of the criteria. Click on the criteria icon to step your way through the various criteria.
- Using the Internal defaults
- Click on 'Show' to see the query results using the internal default.
- Using the Site defaults
- Click on 'Show' to see the query results using the site default.
-
   Using the Persnal_n defaults
- Click on 'Show' to see the query results using the personal_1, _2, _3, _4 default.
It is not perfect
Internal criteria, default criteria, saved criteria, multiple personal criteria, AAARGH! Yes, this mechanism is not perfect. However it is intended to allow you to get to the information you want. The bottom line.
Conduct the search you are interested in. Click 'Show'. Click the 'Save icon' . You are done.
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