Floating point Keyword Types store their data in native floating point database fields within the OnBase database. These values are typically subject to rounding errors when more than six digits are present in the value. Searching for a document with a floating point Keyword Value may be impacted by rounding errors of the value stored in the database. Users may also notice that the exact value entered and stored on a document does not match the value shown when the document's Keyword Values are retrieved. Do not use floating point Keyword Types for cross-referencing documents, for matching documents in Workflow, or for searching for documents where Keyword Values must match. If you need to retrieve or match documents using exact values, use the alphanumeric Keyword Type data type to store the values. Alphanumeric Keyword Types store exactly what is entered and are guaranteed to always match exactly for any search or retrieval operation in OnBase.
If you decide to use the floating point data type, be aware of its limitations and behaviors. Floating point Keyword Values do not accept digit grouping symbols, and they are limited to 17 digits. These values can have a maximum of 14 digits to the left of the decimal point or a maximum of 6 digits to the right of the decimal point. If there are fewer than 6 digits to the right of the decimal point, trailing zeros are added until there are 6 digits. Any decimal value that is longer than six digits is subject to rounding errors, which may prevent users from retrieving a document.
In the OnBase Client, when a user searches using a floating point Keyword Value, OnBase retrieves documents whose floating point Keyword Values fall within a range of 0.000001 greater or less than the value used in the search. For example, a search for the value 0.00005 would retrieve documents indexed with values between 0.000049 and 0.000051.
Users expecting the same rounding behavior in OnBase Web applications may be unable to retrieve documents using floating point Keyword Values. Unlike the OnBase Client, Core Services applications search for the exact value as it is entered by the user. For example, a document indexed with the value .05 may actually be stored with the value .049999. If a Web Client user tried to retrieve the document using the value .05, the document would not be found, even though the same search would find the document in the OnBase Client.