Before you begin
Universal Search is available only if your practice has been enabled. If you don't see it yet, visit Universal Search: Overview or contact Instinct support for details on availability.
Open Universal Search
Press Cmd+K (Mac) or Ctrl+K (Windows) from anywhere in Instinct to open Universal Search directly, or select Look Up in the left navigation panel, then click Try Universal Search in the top right corner of the window.
Tip: The keyboard shortcut Cmd+K (Mac) / Ctrl+K (Windows) is the fastest way to open Universal Search from anywhere in the app. |
Search for a patient or chart document
Click into the search box.
Your recent searches appear immediately—click any recent search to jump back to a previous lookup without retyping.
Type a partial patient or owner name, an identifier (microchip, insurance, or tag number), or a phrase from a document name. A partial term is enough to get results.
Review the results list — patients and chart documents appear together, sorted by relevance. Exact identifier matches appear at the top.
Optionally, click Add Filter to narrow results. Multiple filters can be used at a time to narrow search results:
For Patients, filter by attributes such as species, breed, rabies tag, provider, and/or location.
For Documents, filter by type, patient name and/or date range.
For Practice Library, filter by document category and/or document creation date
Click any result to open the associated record.
Tip: Use the sort options above the results list to change the order of results.  |
Search for an Invoice
Click into the search box.
Type an invoice number, account ID, or phone number.
Optionally, click Add Filter to narrow results. To find invoices, you can filter by patient, invoice status: open or closed, or invoice type: standalone vs visit. Multiple filters can be used at a time to narrow search results.
Navigate to a page from the search
Universal Search also works as a quick navigation tool. Select any Page result in the list, and you're taken there immediately—a faster alternative to clicking through menus.
An example for using Universal Search to navigate to a Page within Instinct would be to search for Staff, instead of navigating through Admin → Practice → Staff in the left navigation panel as usual.
Take quick actions from search results
Patients and documents
Hover over a patient search result to view the panel on the right side of the search window. Use the one-click actions in the side panel, such as pinning the patient to your Status Board or checking a patient in/out—without leaving search.
Selecting the three-dot menu in the side panel opens more navigation options for the selected patient.
Invoices
Hover over any result in the Universal Search preview pane to navigate to a patient's invoice, account ledger, or click the three-dot menu to print the invoice without needing to navigate elsewhere.
Still need help?
Contact support via live chat or email [email protected]