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Searching in Kuali Research

KR Job Aid

Version dated: 3/31/22

There are a variety of search options available to users. This Job Aid will guide faculty and administrators through several common searches as well as provide information for organizing and exporting search results.

Avoid open searches (those that do not contain search criteria) as they:

image of yellow alert triangle

☛ Take a long time to run due to the amount of data in the system.

☛ May not return the information you are looking for, as the result set is limited to a fixed number.

☛ May make the result set difficult to work with because the data is not sorted in any particular order.


Common Search Functions

From the Unit tab in KR, a search is triggered when the user clicks a lookup icon [ ]. The image to the right highlights the Award lookup icon [ ] shown in the Post-Award channel.

Post-Award Channel-Award

Once the Award search icon is clicked, the Award Lookup screen will appear with multiple search criteria. In the example to the left, the system will display only active awards for Dr. Elliott Wolf that contain the root word hexasilane in the title. The system will return these results only if the user has permission to view search results for Dr. Wolf’s department.

Award Lookup

Common Search Tips

  • Award, Institutional Proposal, and Negotiation search results only contain the final version of a KR document. (To search for KR documents that are still in process, use Doc Search – which is explained later in this job aid.)
  • KR has wildcard searches available to assist when the user only has partial information. The most common wildcard is an asterisk [*], which allows the user to search for partial values. Example: Enter *diabetes* in the "Project Title" field and the results will include all proposals with the word diabetes in the title.
  • The "Action List" can serve as a search tool to quickly locate documents on which you need to take action. You can use filters such as:
    • Use the filter feature to sort the action list by items requiring approval (Date Last Assigned).
    • Sort by COMPLETE (under "Action Requested" column) to filter and update documents on which you have been asked to make changes.
    • See the Managing the Action List Job Aid for additional information.
  • The system returns only search results to the user that they have permission to view.
  • The system limits the number of search results to 100. To narrow the search results, enter additional search criteria.

Organizing/Exporting Search Results

  1. Reorder search results by clicking the header of any given column to sort alphabetically or numerically.
  2. Export option links: at the end of each result set, there are links for exporting the data to a different format. If you wish to export the results of the table lookup - either in the CSV, Excel, or XML format - simply click CSV to export the data as a comma delimited file (comma separated value), xls to export the data as an Excel spreadsheet or XML to export the data as xml (extensible markup language).

Common Searches for Faculty

Search All Proposals:

  1. From the Researcher tab, Proposals channel, click the Search Proposals link.
    • The system opens the All Proposal Development Document Lookup screen, with the faculty member's MSU NetID included in the "Participant" field.
  2. If necessary, enter additional search criteria on the All Proposal Development Document Lookup screen to narrow the search results and click the search button.
Search Proposals link under the Lists subsection of the Proposals panel

All My Awards Search:

  1. From the Researcher tab, Awards channel, click the All My Awards link.
    • The system returns Award documents connected to the researcher currently logged in and initiating the search. The researcher’s name will automatically populate the Investigator field of the lookup screen.
  2. The system will show the number of available awards for the researcher (e.g., 206), while only displaying 50 items. The system presents only awards the user has permission to view and are active, or have an active "time & money" document. 
  3. If necessary, enter additional search criteria on the Award Lookup screen to narrow the search results and click the search button.
  4. Select open in the Actions column.
    • The system takes you to the selected Award document.
Search all awards link under the Lists subsection of the Proposals panel

All My Negotiations Search:

NOTE: Searching for Negotiation documents connected to your research works the same way as Award searches. The All My Negotiations link is located in the Negotiations channel under the Researcher tab.

All My Negotiations link under the Negotiations panel in KC

Common Searches for Research Administrators

All My Proposals Search:

NOTE: Follow the steps outlined below when searching for Proposal Development documents that you have initiated.

  1. From the Unit tab, Pre-Award channel, click the lookup icon next to Proposal Development.
    • The system takes you to the Development Proposal Lookup screen.
  2. Enter your MSU NetID in the "Initiator Username" field and click search.
    • The search results include all Proposal Development documents that have been initiated by the logged in user.
  3. Select the View to open the Proposal Development document.

Search Proposal Development, Institutional Proposal, Negotiation, Awards and Subawards:

Searches performed for specific KR documents all work similarly. From the Unit tab, you first locate the desired document type (Proposal Development, Institutional Proposal, Negotiation, Award) in either the Pre-Award or Post-Award channel, click the lookup icon [ ], enter the desired search criteria, and click the search button. As an example, please see the step-by-step instructions below for performing an Award search.

Award Search:

  1. From the Unit tab, Post-Award channel, click the lookup icon next to Award.
  2. On the Award Lookup screen, enter the desired search criteria, such as Account ID.
  3. Click the search button.
  4. Select the desired Award from the search results.

Doc search:

The doc search button takes the user to the Document Search screen, which provides fields to query KR and KFS for various types of documents.

Unlike the Award, Institutional Proposal, or Negotiation searches listed above, Doc Search allows users to search for all versions of KR documents, including those that are not final.

Doc Search can be a useful search function when searching by a "Doc Number", searching for documents created by specific initiators, or when searching by the legacy "App Number".

The initial display of the Document Search screen allows data entry for basic searching. To conduct more refined searches, use the search buttons located at the top of the search window.

Detailed search and superuser search provides users with alternate methods of searching the variety of KR documents. Finally, you will note that you can toggle between the alternative and regular search methods; you can switch between the detailed and basic search views, for  example.

Document Search screen

Searching for an Institutional Proposal by an APP Number (from eTransmittal):

  1. From any tab, click the Doc Search button, located in the top right corner.
  2. Click the lookup icon next to the Document Type field.
    • The system will present the Document Type Lookup screen.
  3. If you are searching for an Institutional Proposal document, type *institutional* (wildcard search) in the Name field and click the Search button at the bottom of the page.
  4. Click the return value link for the "InstitutionalProposalDocument".
  5. Type the Legacy APP# in the Organization Document Number field and click the Search button.
    • The system returns all the different versions of the Institutional Proposal associated with the Legacy APP# entered.
  6. Click the Document Id link that is the largest number with the status of FINAL to view the current version of the Institutional Proposal record.
    • The system opens and displays the Institutional Proposal.

NOTE: Searching for an Award using an APP number would be the same process, only instead of using the "InstitutionalProposalDocument" you would type in/look up "AwardDocument".

Search for Awards using an Account ID:

  1. From any tab, click the Doc Search button.
  2. Click the lookup icon next to the Document Type field to search for the Award document.
    • The system will present the Document Type Lookup screen.
  3. Type *award* (wildcard search) in the Name field and click the Search button at the bottom of the page.
  4. Click the return value link next to "AwardDocument".
  5. Enter the appropriate number in the Account ID field and click the search button.
    • The system returns a list of awards for the Account ID entered.

NOTE: Searching for an Award using an APP number would be the same process as searching for an Institutional Proposal, only instead of using the "InstitutionalProposalDocument" you would type in/look up "AwardDocument".

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