• Introduction
• Screen Layout
• Searching for Information
• Summary Results
• Related Information
• Browsing Individual Item Details

This Data Inventory has been developed by the Petroleum Affairs Division (PAD) to provide online access to its meta-database. The meta-database contains information on hydrocarbon exploration & development data from offshore Ireland as well as summary information on individual wells and surveys. Using the application, it is possible to search the meta-database using a number of user-defined criteria, and in appropriate cases, to search for related information in other meta-datasets. We suggest the use of Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or above, when using this application, and a screen resolution of 1024 x 768.

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The Petroleum Affairs Division Data Inventory (PAD DI) has been designed to present a consistent layout throughout the application. There are two sets of menu bars that are always available to the user - the horizontal menu bar, in green at the top of the screen, and the vertical menu bar, in blue, located in the left hand column on each screen.

The horizontal menu bar provides static links to the PAD DI Home Page, the PAD Website (part of the Department of the Marine and Natural Resource's website), details on Latest News and Contact Information for the PAD DI.

The left-hand vertical menu bar displays links to the search screens of the meta-datasets that are available at the PAD DI, and a number of static links, including Help, a downloadable PDF Map showing Quadrant Numbers, links to the PAD Website, the PIP Website (Petroluem Infrastructure Programme), and the PIP DI (PIP Data Inventory) website. In addition there are links to Contact information, Latest News and the Department of the Marine and Natural Resources website.

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To search for information from one of the meta-datasets available on the PAD DI, begin by clicking on the meta-dataset you wish to query from the left-hand menu bar. The Search Screen for your chosen meta-dataset is then presented in your browser.

To conduct a search, simply carry out the following steps:

1. From the drop down boxes, specify your criteria. If you wish to search for all information in a given item, choose 'All' (this is the default). When specifying a Quadrant Number, you may refer to the map on the search screen to ascertain where a given quadrant is located.
2. You may optionally specify some text criteria. The application will attempt to look for any instance of your text in all the items in the meta-dataset.
   
3. Specify how you would like to sort your search, and how many items per result page you wish to view.
4. When you have selected your criteria, click on the 'Search' button.

When searching for information in the meta-dataset, the PAD DI looks for items that match all the criteria specified by the user. So for example, if you specified Quadrant 35 and a text of 'oil', then an individual record in the meta-dataset must be located in Quadrant 35 AND have the text 'oil' in one of its fields.

Please note that the less criteria you specify, the more general your search will be, and typically these searches will take longer to complete then searching for more specific criteria.

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The results of your search are presented for browsing in the Summary Results screen for the chosen meta-dataset. This screen indicates whether records have been found that match your criteria, and if so, the number of matching records, and a summary list of the matches. In addition, additional result pages may be retrieved using the 'Result Page' links at the bottom of the screen.

The matching items, and a subset of the columns in each of the matching records are presented in your browser. You can browse more details on an individual item by clicking on the left hand link, which will bring you the item Details screen.

Certain meta-datsets in the PAD DI have other related meta-data. If the meta-dataset you are searching has related meta-data, you can click on the right hand 'Related Items...' button to search for related items for the corresponding data row that the button upon which the button appears.

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If the original meta-dataset has related information, the number of matching records in the other related meta-datasets are displayed, where appropriate. This screen indicates the number of related matches in the given meta-dataset - clicking on the link enables you to browse these items as described in the previous section.

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From the Summary Results screen, clicking on the left most link in the data table presents details for the individual record selected. The entire contents of the selected record are showm. Where appropriate, links to email contacts, and a relevant map for the item may also be presented.

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