I was Googling around for this same thing and found your post. Swapping ref and id worked for me, strangely.
<search ref="my report" id="CurrentTickets">
<earliest>$TOKEN_TIME.earliest$</earliest>
<latest>$TOKEN_TIME.latest$</latest>
</search>
I tried using query tags as well per cmerriman's answer, but the search wouldn't fire off until I removed them.
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