in your web-client-config-custom.xml file:

<config>

<client>

<simple-search-additional-attributes>

<qname>{http://www.alfresco.org/model/content/1.0}description</qname>

<qname>{http://www.alfresco.org/model/content/1.0}title</qname>

</simple-search-additional-attributes>

</client>

</config>

Then you can just say, search for a contract number and it'll appear in the result set. I clicked on Advanced Search, thinking that the same functionality would be used for the Look for search bar in Advanced Search, however it wasn't. Looking into this, the only way it seems I can search on my custom properties, is by defining them within web-client-config-custom.xml as follows:

<config evaluator="string-compare" condition="Advanced Search">

<advanced-search>

<content-types>

</content-types>

<custom-properties>

<meta-data aspect="app:simpleworkflow" property="app:approveStep" />

</custom-properties>

</advanced-search>

</config>