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City of Boston Public Search Guide

This document provides a guide to searching and viewing public records from the City of Boston website. It outlines the four departments with searchable records organized into folders. Users can search records by selecting a folder, choosing search criteria like permit number or date, and entering values to match. Search results can then be viewed, with options to see individual record details or download/print files. The viewer allows navigating between pages and documents from search results.

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15 views7 pages

City of Boston Public Search Guide

This document provides a guide to searching and viewing public records from the City of Boston website. It outlines the four departments with searchable records organized into folders. Users can search records by selecting a folder, choosing search criteria like permit number or date, and entering values to match. Search results can then be viewed, with options to see individual record details or download/print files. The viewer allows navigating between pages and documents from search results.

Uploaded by

Be B
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CITY OF BOSTON - PUBLIC SEARCH USERS GUIDE

Welcome to the search portal for the City of Boston! This site allows you to search and view public records for
several city departments at your convenience. In our system, documents are organized into four folders for
searching, and you can work in any folder you choose at any time.
When you access the search site, the home page has a section for Folders (which contain documents to search
on), and a Simple Search section which will display fields you can use to launch a search to find documents:

Under the Folders section, four departments have searchable public records, and each has its folder to search:
Department Folder
Traffic Department BTD – Traffic Data Collection
Inspectional Services Department ISD – Permit Images
Parks Parks – Historic Burying Grounds Survey Sheets
Public Works PWD – Street Plan PDFs
To find records, you will start by choosing a folder, and search the records from there. You can also click Home
(or the City of Boston – Public Search banner) to get back to the main screen at any time, or Site Help to
display instructions for using the site.

Selecting a folder to search


To begin a search, move your mouse and hover over a folder. When you do so, new icons will appear to the
right of the folder name:

CITY OF BOSTON PUBLIC RECORDS SEARCH GUIDE V11012019 – PAGE 1


The magnifying glass is the “Search” icon; click it, and the area to the right shows the search screen for your
selected folder:
Area 1 shows a list of
information (“Indexes”)
that you can choose from
to construct your search.
They will be different for
each folder.

Area 2 For each Index


listed in section 1, area 2
has an empty field – you
will key in search values in
these fields.

Area 3: These checkboxes


appear next to each index.
If checked, you will see the
value of that index on your
results screen.

Area 4 has a set of buttons


you will use to launch your
search.

Area 5 is a scroll bar.


Some folders have more
indexes than will fit on
your screen top to
bottom. Use the scrollbar
to move up and down to
view all Indexes and value
fields.

CITY OF BOSTON PUBLIC RECORDS SEARCH GUIDE V11012019 – PAGE 2


Setting up your search

1. Start by scrolling up and down to review


the available index fields (Area 1). Each
one has a drop-down arrow. Click the
arrow, and you get a list of comparison
operators. See the end of this document
for more information on how to use
these

2. Find one or more indexes you want to


search on, click the arrows to choose a
comparison (or leave at the default of “=
(Equal To)”)
Comparison Operators
3. Enter values in for each index you want
to search on

4. Click the boxes next to the index values


you want to see in your results

Here is an example of a search that is set up to find records whose Permit Number is A993149:

Note that each box to the right has a check-in it; in this example it means that the values for Permit
Date, Permit Number, Scan Date, Stamped Date, Status, Status Date and Unit will display in the
search results.
5. You can enter in values in more than one Index value field; if you do, your search will only find records
that match all of the values and comparisons you chose. In the following example, we added a

CITY OF BOSTON PUBLIC RECORDS SEARCH GUIDE V11012019 – PAGE 3


Stamped Date value of 09/05/2019, and the resulting search would find records with a Permit Number
of “A993149” and a Stamped Date of “09/05/2019”:

6. Once you are done setting up your search, you can choose from the three buttons at the bottom to
continue:

Search: Launches your search, showing you detailed information on any results
Count: Launches your search, but shows only a count of records matching your search
Reset Search: Resets all search fields to their defaults. Use if you want to start a new and reset all
indexes, comparisons, and values

7. Clicking Search launches the search. If there is a matching record, a results screen will display:

If there are no matches, searching will show this instead:

8. If you get no results, click the Back button, try changing your search criteria and launch a new search.
The most common problems with not finding records are a) An exact search (=) that does not have a
match or b) trying a search with multiple index criteria and values, and one of them prevents finding
matches. Try changing the comparison settings, values, or eliminate some criteria and re-try.

CITY OF BOSTON PUBLIC RECORDS SEARCH GUIDE V11012019 – PAGE 4


Working with your Search Results
When you have run a successful search and have one or more records, you will see a results grid with one or
more entries, like this:

Generally, you will always proceed by selecting one or more records (you can use click, Ctrl-Click, and Shift-
Click to select single records, multiple records, or a range of records) and then choosing an action. Here is part
of the same results grid with two chosen records:

The two things most people do is to use the icons to the right of each row:

To view the properties of the document (first icon, “pencil in box”), or to view the document (“eye” icon).
Using these icons acts ONLY on the document in the row where you clicked the icon.
When records are highlighted, you can also choose:
Back: Leaves the results screen and goes back to the search screen
Refresh: Updates the results screen, including unhiding records hidden by the Hide button

CITY OF BOSTON PUBLIC RECORDS SEARCH GUIDE V11012019 – PAGE 5


Hide: Temporarily hides the selected records from viewing. You can get them back by clicking the Refresh
button, or backing up to the search screen and performing a new search
View Documents: Will open all selected documents (see below for more information on viewing)
… in New Tab: Will open all selected documents for viewing, but the viewer will load in a new tab in your
browser, leaving the current tab with your search results unaffected
Download Search Results: Downloads a file containing your search result information (in one of several
formats)
Print: Will allow printing of the selected documents

Viewing and Exporting Images


When you open a document for viewing, the individual pages and images of the document will open for you in
a Document Viewer window, which has several features you might want to use:

1. Document Viewer: This will display the image of the current page of the current document you are
viewing

CITY OF BOSTON PUBLIC RECORDS SEARCH GUIDE V11012019 – PAGE 6


2. Document Navigator: Clicking the numbers or arrow icons moves you back and forth between
different documents from your search
3. Page Navigator: Clicking the numbers or arrow icons moves you back and forth between different
pages in the current document being display from your search
4. Export Icons: The printer icon will allow you to print to a local printer, the down arrow will allow you to
download (save) a copy to your computer.
5. View icons: There are two sets of icons, one near the top of the document viewer and one near the
bottom which can both be used to zoom around and scale the images different to suit your
preferences.
The document and page navigation items allow you to move back and forth between the documents in your
search results and the individual pages in each document. Numbers in the middle allow clicking on a specific
page:

You can use the scrollbar and menus marked with “5” above to move around your image, zoom in to magnify,
zoom out, fit the image in your browser window, etc.

You can use the two icons in the upper right corner of the viewer window to print or download a copy of the
document:

When you are done viewing your document, click the Back button to return to your search results or the
Home icon to get back to the main window.

CITY OF BOSTON PUBLIC RECORDS SEARCH GUIDE V11012019 – PAGE 7

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