How to Use Advanced Timeline Search

What it is

The timeline search bar now lets you find events by both exact words and terms of similar nature or meaning.

You can type phrases the way you’d say them to a colleague, and Mary will show events that use those words and events that describe the same kind of thing (including similar or synonymous wording).

This is available in any View for a matter.

Why it matters

Scrolling through long timelines to find “all the aggressive behaviour” or “all references to a back injury” is slow and easy to miss things.

Search in the timeline helps you:

• Quickly find events about a particular symptom, behaviour, allegation, or issue

• Pick up wording variations (e.g. “abuse”, “violence”, “assault”) in one search

• Get to the important parts of the chronology faster so you can focus on analysis

How to use it

1. Open a matter and go to your desired timeline View.

2. Click into the search bar at the top left-hand side.

3. Type a short plain-language phrase (e.g. “verbal abuse in front of children”).

4. Press Enter. The chronology will filter to events that:

   • Contain the words you typed; and

   • Use related wording or describe the same idea.

5. To reuse a search, save it as a view/filter and return to that filtered View later.

You do not need to:

• Use quotation marks

• Use special syntax like AND / OR

• Match the exact wording used in the documents

Examples by practice area

These are illustrative only – results will depend on your matter.

Personal injury

Try phrases like:

• “forklift accident at loading dock” → may return “forklift”, “pallet jack incident”, “warehouse loading bay accident”

• “lifting back strain” → may return “manual handling injury”, “lumbar strain”, “back pain from lifting”

• “slipped on wet floor” → may return “fall on wet tiles”, “slip in supermarket aisle”, “fell due to spill”

Useful for pulling together mechanism of injury, key incidents, and symptom history.

Family law

Try phrases like:

• “verbal abuse” → may return “yelling at spouse in front of kids”, “insults while children present”

• “threatened to take the children”

  • May return “threatened to keep the kids”, “said she would take the children away”.

• “stopped letting him see the kids”

  • May return “stopped contact between father and children”, “would not allow him to see the children”.

General litigation

Try phrases like:

• “misleading financial statements” → may return “inflated revenue”, “false profit figures”, “inaccurate accounts”

• “termination of supply agreement” → may return “termination notice”, “ceased supply”, “ended distribution arrangement”

• “corruption” → may return “bribery”, “kickbacks”, “improper payments”

Useful for isolating events around alleged misconduct, contract changes, and key disputes.

Tips and notes

• Start simple: short phrases (around 1–5 words) usually work best.

• Think in concepts, not exact wording:

  • Searching “abuse” may return “assault” or “physical violence”.

  • Searching “sickness” may return “illness” or “unwell”.

• Combine search with filters:

  • Apply date ranges, participant filters, or document filters first, then search within that narrower set.

• Save common searches (e.g. “breach of parenting orders”, “manual handling injury”) as views so your team can reuse them.

Known limitations

For the current version of search:

• No date logic inside the search

  • You cannot type “events after March 2023 leading up to surgery in March 2024” as a single search.

  • Instead, apply date filters and then search within that range.

• Unable to perform searches using a date anchor, such as entering “show me everything around X.”

  • Requests like “show me all events around the forklift accident” are treated as text search, not as clustering on the timeline.

• No complex relational logic

  • Cross-document contradictions or multi-step relationships are out of scope.