Advanced Search

Quickly sift through your devices using advanced search. You can create complex search queries based on device or device-adjacent properties to filter devices according to your criteria. These advanced searches are constructed from a combination of device and extended properties strung together with operators.

Sample advanced search with device properties and extended properties.

Combine device properties with extended properties to create complex search strings.

List of some of the available device properties to potentially use in search.
Tip: Getting started with advanced search is easy. After you activate the search field, it will provide a list of all available extended and device properties. Select a property and the search field will display auto-complete hints to help you craft your first advanced search query.

Not all properties are applicable to every device type.

Device Properties

Device properties are any attribute of a device that is tracked or reported to SOTI MobiControl. Device properties may be universal and apply to all device types (such as Device Family, Manufacturer, or MAC Address) or and device type specific (such as Supervised (Apple), ELM Status (Samsung Android), or OS Base Edition (Windows 10)). SOTI MobiControl reports a large number of device properties. The easiest way to see which device properties are available and applicable to a device is to open its Device Information panel. You can perform searches using any of the properties listed in the Device Details tab of the panel.

Device Information panel of an Android device.

Extended Properties

Extended properties are objects that are associated with a device but are not a property of the device. SOTI MobiControl can perform searches on the following extended properties:

  • Apple ADE: enrollment program for iOS and macOS devices
  • Apps: apps installed on the device
  • Certificates: certificates installed on the device
  • Compliance Policies: custom policies that determine a device's compliance status
  • Health Attestation: security check feature for Windows Modern devices
  • Profiles: profiles assigned to the device
  • Trusted Platform Module: security standard for processors
  • User groups: identity management systems such as Directory Services or Identity Providers associated with the device
List of available extended properties to use in search.

Operators

Use logical and Boolean operators to construct your search queries.

Device search with logical and Boolean operators.

Logical operators connect the property with its desired value. They include variations on is, is not, contains, does not contain, greater than, and more. Which logical operators are available change to suit the needs of the property. For example, text-based properties support the contains operator while numeric types do not. The opposite is true for the greater than operator.

Note: Some property types are treated as both text and numeric property types. Generally, these are properties related to versions. For example, when using greater than or less than operators to determine version progression, the search compares values between versioning points individually and in sequence to determine which is a later version. Any numeric values following the first alphabetic character are ignored. That is, “2.10” is greater than “2.9 Build 1000”.

Boolean operators (AND, OR, Grouped OR) string together multiple device and extended properties to create complex queries. Use AND to run searches where the returned devices must match all stated properties. Use OR to run searches where the returned devices only needs to match one of the stated properties. Use Grouped OR to place a filter around the linked properties and force SOTI MobiControl to evaluate the properties together.

AND is evaluated before OR unless it is a Grouped OR.

Search by Exclusion

You can run searches based on excluding devices that match the search terms, however, you need to change the extended property qualifier from Include to Exclude first.

Switching between inclusive and exclusive searches.

If you don't change the qualifier and try to search by exclusion by inverting the logical operator (that is, using IS NOT instead of IS) instead, you're likely to still receive search results that include the devices you wanted to exclude. For example, running this search INCLUDE: Apps: Name ≠ SOTI MobiControl to find all devices that do not have the SOTI MobiControl agent installed, will likely fail because devices likely have other apps on them, which are also not named SOTI MobiControl and therefore match your criteria. You need to enter EXCLUDE: Apps: Name = SOTI MobiControl instead.

Note: You can only search by exclusion with extended properties, not device properties.

Advanced Search Examples

Use the Sample Devices data set to understand how SOTI MobiControl performs advanced searches.

Table 1. Sample Devices
# Device Name OS Version Device Family Serial Number Application
1 Timothy Smit's iPhone 11.0 Apple AABBCCEEDD
Name Version Status
Calculator 1.0 Installed
Barcode Scanner 3.101.3 Managed
CRM 1.1 Uninstalled
2 Sara's Nexus 5.0 Android Plus 1122334455
Name Version Status
Calculator 2.0 Not Installed
CRM 1.0 Installed
3 Tim Thompson's Desktop 10.0 Windows Modern ZZYYXXWWVV
Name Version Status
Calendar 1.4 Installed
4 Jane's iPad 10.3 Apple A1B2C3D4E5
Name Version Status
Calculator 1.1 Install Pending
Sales Leads 9 Installed
Barcode Scanner 3.3.400 Installed

Example: Advanced searches

This search query Returns these devices
Device Family = Apple AND OS Version >= 10 1, 4
(OS Version <= 10.3 OR OS Version = 11) AND Device Family = Apple 1, 4
Device Name CONTAINS Tim 1, 3
Device Family = Apple OR Device Family = Windows Modern 1, 3, 4

Example: Advanced searches with extended properties

This search query Returns these devices
Application Include (Name = Calculator) 1, 2, 4
Application Include (Name = Calculator AND Status = Not Installed) 2
[Application Include (Name = Calculator)] AND [Application Include (Status = Installed)] 1, 2, 4
Application Include (Name = Calculator AND Version > 1.0) 2, 4
[Application Include (Name = Calculator OR Name = Calendar)] AND Device Family = Apple 1, 4

Example: Advanced searches with extended properties, demonstrating the difference between include and exclude

This search query Returns these devices
Application Include (Name ≠ Calculator) 1, 2, 3, 4
Application Exclude (Name = Calculator) 3
Application Exclude (Name = Calculator AND Status = Installed) 2, 3, 4
Application Include (Name = Calculator AND Status ≠ Installed) 2, 4