Answers.Body: <p>Under admin - customize data and screens - search preferences, there's an option for automatic wildcard.</p>
  <p>It seems to still wildcard the end of the search string, but not the beginning.</p>
  <p>That admin page explains it:</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>If enabled, wildcards are automatically added to the beginning AND end of the search term when users search for contacts by Name. EXAMPLE: Searching for 'ada' will return any contact whose name includes those letters - e.g. 'Adams, Janet', 'Nadal, Jorge', etc. If disabled, a wildcard is added to the end of the search term only. EXAMPLE: Searching for 'ada' will return any contact whose last name begins with those letters - e.g. 'Adams, Janet' but NOT 'Nadal, Jorge'. Disabling this feature will speed up search significantly for larger databases, but users must manually enter wildcards ('%' or '_') to the beginning of the search term if they want to find all records which contain those letters. EXAMPLE: '%ada' will return 'Nadal, Jorge'.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-09-12T06:02:40.067Z
Answers.Text: Yes - this is not consistent across fields but it *should* prepend a wild card unless that setting is disabled. On larger sites turning it off gives a big performance boost
Answers.UserDisplayName: eileen
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-09-13T07:14:41.417Z
Answers.Text: Hey thanks, that's handy. And yes, it's a big performance problem because a prepended `%` means it can't use the index (which I've manually added). I feel a gitlab discussion coming on about this when I have the energy!
Answers.UserDisplayName: artfulrobot
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-09-11T16:52:47.887Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2020-09-13T07:19:11.090Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2020-09-13T07:19:11.090Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Demerit
Body: <p>In several places, and specifically, the &quot;location&quot; field of an activity, as searched using the Advanced Search, I've noticed that given <code>hello there</code> CiviCRM will actually search on <code>%hello there%</code>.</p>
  <p>Is it possible to make it just search on what was provided?</p>
  
Tags: <advanced-search>
Title: How to search activity location without % being added?
ThreadText: # How to search activity location without % being added?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2020-09-11)
  
  In several places, and specifically, the "location" field of an activity, as searched using the Advanced Search, I've noticed that given `hello there` CiviCRM will actually search on `%hello there%`.
  
  Is it possible to make it just search on what was provided?
  
  **Tags:** advanced-search
  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2020-09-11. Score: 1 | Accepted answer
  
  Under admin - customize data and screens - search preferences, there's an option for automatic wildcard.
  
  It seems to still wildcard the end of the search string, but not the beginning.
  
  That admin page explains it:
  
  > If enabled, wildcards are automatically added to the beginning AND end of the search term when users search for contacts by Name. EXAMPLE: Searching for 'ada' will return any contact whose name includes those letters - e.g. 'Adams, Janet', 'Nadal, Jorge', etc. If disabled, a wildcard is added to the end of the search term only. EXAMPLE: Searching for 'ada' will return any contact whose last name begins with those letters - e.g. 'Adams, Janet' but NOT 'Nadal, Jorge'. Disabling this feature will speed up search significantly for larger databases, but users must manually enter wildcards ('%' or '\_') to the beginning of the search term if they want to find all records which contain those letters. EXAMPLE: '%ada' will return 'Nadal, Jorge'.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_2**: Yes - this is not consistent across fields but it *should* prepend a wild card unless that setting is disabled. On larger sites turning it off gives a big performance boost  
  > **username_0**: Hey thanks, that's handy. And yes, it's a big performance problem because a prepended `%` means it can't use the index (which I've manually added). I feel a gitlab discussion coming on about this when I have the energy!  
  
  ---
  
  