Query Examples

Arthur and Neil at SDSUPER

To find all events for Arthur (AMS) and Neil (NPB) at San Diego Superior Court (SDSUPER), first translate it to what one event needs to match, as in "the Who equals AMS or the Who equals NPB and Where equals SDSUPER."

When you have more than two rows and the connectors are not all "and," you need to add parentheses to show which rows get logically combined first. In this case we need to combine the two Who expressions as shown below.

(Who = equals/starts with AMS or
Who = equals/starts with NPB and)
Where = equals/starts with SDSUPER

If you do not add the parentheses, since the "and" connectors get evaluated first you will see all events with "Who equals AMS," regardless of the Where field, plus events with "Who = NPB and Where equals SDSUPER" - which is not what we wanted!

Querying for events that are "Not Done"

This common example is one of the standard queries that comes pre-set in Abacus with the ID "NOT_DONE." In your Calendar, you probably don't want to see events that have already been "done" (but you don't want them deleted from your database because you want to leave a trail of what has been done).

Apply the following query to see only "not done" events:

Status is not equal to D and
Status is not equal to OFF

Events prior to a cutoff

This example is pre-set with the ID "BEFORE." It is often used when deleting multiple events found with a query. In the following example, Abacus will find all events before January 1, 1998. (Just change the VALUE every time you want to remove all events before that date.)

When is less than (<) 01/01/98

Events that are "Not Reminders"

This example is pre-set with the ID "NO REMS." On your monthly Laser Calendars, you probably do not have enough space to see all the "Reminders" for future events, so you can use this query to keep the calendar un-cluttered:

What is not equal to REMINDER

You may even want to exclude "Done" events as well, so you can create a new query that would look like:

What is not equal to REMINDER and
Status is not equal to D

Querying the Time

To limit a calendar to only "timed events" (all events that have a real time, not TO-DO, blank, or 0:00), set up a query like this:

Time is not empty and
Time is less than TO-DO

To see only non-timed events, including TO-DOs, set it up this way:

Time is empty or
Time = equals/starts with TO-DO