Advanced search in Collaborate

In addition to Quick search, where you are limited to entering a simple search term in a search field, the Advanced Search screen enables you to apply filters to locate the right content.

Accessing advanced search

The Advanced Search screen can be accessed in one of three ways.

1. Click the Search icon in the top bar:

Then click the down arrow and select Advanced search:

2. After performing a search, click Advanced search in the left-hand panel:

3. In the Files module search box, click Filter > Advanced search:

Advanced search window

In most cases, when accessed from the top bar the Advanced Search window looks like this:

The search page will be slightly different if it is filtered by a specific module, or accessed from the Files module.

The search form includes a number of fields. If criteria are entered in more than one field, then all of the criteria must be satisfied. For example, if the Author field is set to John Smith and the Tag is Video, then only items that are both authored by 'John Smith' and have the tag 'Video' will be returned.

• Search Terms - Search terms can be entered in one or more of three fields. Individual terms of phrases can be entered in any of these fields.

  • All of these words - A result will be returned only if it contains all of the words (or phrases) listed. The words do not need to be a phrase.

  • Any of these words - A result will be returned if it contains any of the words (or phrases) listed

  • Exclude these words - A result will be excluded from the results if it contains any of the words (or phrases) listed

As of April 2023, when a search is performed from the advanced search window, keywords entered in the Any, All and Exclude fields are automatically entered in the main global search box, seperated by appropriate Boolean operators. This allows you to easily repeat searches from the main search view.

• With these tags - Return items that contain any of the tags entered (but not necessarily all of the tags entered).

The Files, Wiki, Blog and Events modules use tags.

Simply start typing and any matching tags will be shown and can be selected:

Tags, which are discussed at length here, are very powerful as they permit you to search for content across multiple modules that relate to the same subject, or even across all sites.

For example, you can use the tag argentina in any files, wiki page, blog posts and events that involve Argentina. Then run an advanced search across all modules, filtering where the tag is argentina. Results in all of these content areas will be returned.

• In site - Select the site to search, defaulting to the current site

• Content type - The list of site modules that have been enabled and are available to the user who is searching, including comments.

If the Files content type is selected, additional search fields may appear. This field defaults to All content types.

• Date - The period of time when the content was last updated. Available date ranges include 'Any', 'Last Week', 'Last Month', 'Last 3 Months', 'Last 6 Months' and 'Last 12 Months'

• Author - Search for another user to add an author

• Search results - How many search results to return. The default is 100 and the maximum is 1,000.

There is also a maximum of five pages of results.

If the Files module has been enhanced with fields from the iSheets module, then additional search fields, corresponding to those iSheet fields, are included in the search page as well. This is described here.