SEARCH TIPS

The BIP Registry can be searched by two major categories: (a) by business (i.e. using the "Businesses by Community, Region Search" or the "Business Search" option and (b), by commodity (i.e. using the "Businesses by Commodity Search" or "Commodity Search" option).

The BIP Registry Menu:

1. Businesses by Community, Region

·         Allows you to search by community, by region, by commodity or a combination of any or all of the above options

·         Should you submit a search for all of the above, the result is an alphabetical list of all businesses by business name.

2. Businesses by Commodity

·         Allows you to search by community, region, commodity or a combination of any or all of the above options

·         Should you submit a search for all of the above, the result is an alphabetical list by goods and services title

3. Business Search

·         Allows you to search by entering search (key) words which can be found in the business name, address, resident manager name, and/or community.

EXAMPLE: searching on "Joe" would find any companies in which the resident manager’s first name is "Joe".

·         Allows you to search by a particular letter (this feature only applies to the business name beginning with the particular letter, not with the community or resident manager).

EXAMPLE: clicking on "A" will result in an alphabetical list of all businesses starting with "A".

·         The result of either search method is a list of businesses, sorted first by community and then by business name

4. Commodity Search

·         Allows you to search by one or more words to search the list of commodity titles.

EXAMPLE: searching for "Painting" will show all commodities having the word "Painting" in the title.

EXAMPLE: clicking on "A" will result in an alphabetical list of all commodities starting with "A".

·         The result of either method of search is an alphabetical list of commodities; clicking on any commodity will result in a list of businesses having that commodity. This list is sorted first by community and then by business name.

 ADDITIONAL SEARCH TIPS

There are a few basic rules about the search mechanism that you should be aware of.

1.       You may only search on full words. Partial searching is not supported at present.

EXAMPLE: searching for "Computer" will not find any businesses with "Computers" in the name.

2.       Searching is not case-sensitive.

EXAMPLE: searching for "Smith" will achieve the same results as "SMITH".

3.       You can search by more than one word at a time. If you do not use any of the special inclusion/exclusion characters (see below), searching on multiple words will find data with any combination of the supplied search (key) words.

EXAMPLE: searching for "Plumbing Supplies" will find businesses with either "Mechanical" or "Plumbing", or both, in the business name.

4.       You can do an advanced search by indicating certain words MUST be present in any data returned. This is achieved by preceding that word with the "+" character.

EXAMPLE: searching for "Plumbing+Yellowknife" will only retrieve businesses that have "Yellowknife" in their name or community of business. The results may or may not have "Plumbing" in them.

5.       You can do an advanced search by indicating certain words MUST NOT be present in any data returned. This is achieved by preceding that word with the "-" character.

EXAMPLE: searching for "Plumbing-Yellowknife" will only retrieve businesses that do not have "Yellowknife" in their name and community of business.

NOTE: hyphenated words are not treated as exclusions; searching for "coca – cola" will behave differently than "coca-cola".

6.       Some characters are ignored in the search. These include /,\,{,},[,],(,),=, and .

EXAMPLE: searching for "Smith Plumbing (1987) Ltd." is the same as searching for "Smith Plumbing 1987 Ltd."

7.       Search results are ordered in terms of percentage match. This value indicates the percentage of searched words that were found in each result.

EXAMPLE: if you search on two words and both are found in a result, the percentage shows up as 100% for that entry. If only one of the two words is present in a result, the percentage shows as 50% for that entry.

PRINTING TIPS

Should you wish to print information from the BIP Registry of Approved Northern Businesses, please note that you must print this information page by page.

EXAMPLE: to print all businesses that begin with the letter ‘A’ (5 Pages), you must call up each page one at a time and enter the print command for each page.