Search by multiple substances to use commas or carriage returns.

[ptc-2219781]

We are currently working on the ability to search supplier parts by multiple substances. We had originally developed this so that substances could either be seperated by commas or by carriage returns. In recent discussions with a customer it was suggested that we drop using commas as a separator between substances and only use carriage returns due to fact that many substances might contain commas. I would like to here from other customers on this issue. What do you use the searching by substances for? Do you often have to search by multiple substances? Do you often have to search by substances which contain commas?

[MichaelJAltemus]

I would prefer any number of spaces between each CAS number because that would give me the ability to copy a list of CAS numbers from an Excel spreadsheet and paste in the CAS number field in WPA. For example I was able to paste the list below directly in WPA.

6786-83-0
101-61-1
59653-74-6
1303-86-2
112-49-2
561-41-1
17570-76-2
75-12-7
548-62-9
110-71-4
2580-56-5
2451-62-9
90-94-8

[ptc-2219781]

Do any customers separate searching for multiple items by separating the list with commas (vs. new line character)?

Example: Searching for Company Parts via Company Part Numbers:

Comma separated:

0001, 002, 003

New Line Character:

001

002

003

We want to explore allowing for multiple substances. There are many substances which contain commas.

Example:

Decanoic Acid, Lead Salt

Isononanoic Acid, Lead Salt

Formic Acid, Lead Salt

If we continue to allow for searching with a comma separated list the above 3 items would be treated as 6 items. If we remove the comma separated search, and only allowed new line character separated seach, the above list of three would work properly.

We would welcome input of the removing of the comma separated item search, and we want to gauge the impact to our existing customers.

[ptc-3985148]

I would tend to agree with Mike. Being able to enter multiple CAS#'s from an excel sheet would be the best approach. I think that searching by substance name is problematic due to the large number of extra characters in many of the substance names. These include commas, semi colons, apostrophes etc. For this reason searching by substance name should be restricted to one per line and not rely on a specific seperating character. In addition I would think searching by CAS would be easier as many of the substance names are quite long and complex. I primarily use the search by name to look for wilcard matches and fragments. For example to find tungsten compounds search for *tung* and *wolf*