Multiple search terms and operators
By default, Collaborate runs a wildcard search, meaning that it finds the terms that are entered either as complete words or inside other words. For example, the term merge is found in the word merger. If more than one term is entered, the system will return content that matches any of the terms (meaning term1 OR term2, etc.). As shown below, results are returned that include the terms documentation or test:
The image above is using the OR search; as Enter was pressed when searching.
There may be a delay before you can search for content in recently saved content; new content is indexed approximately every 10 minutes.
Multiple search terms in the top navigation bar
When using multiple search terms and using the global search option in the top navigation bar, criteria entered before pressing Enter will search for the first AND the other search words (i.e. the returned content must contain both of the words).
If you press enter, the system uses the standard search engine functionality which returns results that include the first OR the other search words.
The standard search uses features such as stemming to find close matches with similar meanings, or that give similar close results.
There are numerous ways to change how terms are used in a search:
- Phrase - If search terms are put inside of quotations marks, the terms will be treated as a phrase. All of the words must be in the content, and the terms must be adjacent to each other, in the correct order
- OR - This is to indicate that any of the terms are present - use the || operator: term1 || term2
- AND - This is to require that both terms are present, but not necessarily adjacent to each other. This is the default search
- NOT - This is to require that a term be excluded from the results - use the ! operator: term1 ! term2, which means that term1 must be included, but term2 must be absent
- Grouping - Search terms and operators can be grouped using parentheses. For example, to search for all content with term1 or term2 but not term3 or term4, use this format: (term1 || term2) ! (term3 || term4). To find content with term1 or term2 but not BOTH term3 and term4: (term1 || term2) ! (term3 && term4).
Please note that all searches are case insensitive.
Searching by title
Use the following format to limit a search to the title of a file, wiki page or other content:
title:titleWord1 titleWord2
or
title:"title phrase"
Where the title: operator is followed immediately by words in the title, or a phrase in the title in quotation marks, i.e. without a space after title:.
In the Advanced Search page, the title: operator can only be entered in the Any of these words field.
Search for tags
More information about tags can be found here.
Advanced search
Tags permit a user to search for content across multiple modules that relate to the same subject, or even across all sites. For example, if you use the tag argentina in files, wiki pages, blog posts or events that are related to Argentina, then you can run an advanced search across all modules with a filter for the 'argentina' tag. Only results that have been tagged 'Argentina' will be returned from all modules.
Tag links
In the view screen for tagged content, click on a tag to run a search in the same module, across that site. For example, if the tag release note is used in a blog post, click release note to search for any blog posts tagged 'release note' across the same site.
To expand that search to include all modules, click All. To expand the search to include all sites, select All from the drop-down menu.
Tag clouds
Both the Blog home page and the Wiki module may include a tag cloud, if the option is configured by the Site administrator (here or here).
A tag cloud lists, in alphabetical, order all of the tags used in a certain module, but additionally, it indicates the popularity of each tag by adjusting the font size, i.e. larger text indicates tags that are used more often. Click on a tag in the tag cloud to search all of the content in that module for the selected tag.
Search results
The Search results screen contains a number of powerful features:
- Selected site - If the search was run from a specific site, then that site will be selected and the search results limited to that site. However, you can select a different site from the list of sites available, which will change the scope of the search. If the search had been run from the Dashboard, then All sites available would be selected
- Search terms - The search terms used will be shown in the text field
- Available modules - By default, the quick search will search against all of the modules in a site that (a) have been enabled and (b) that you have access to (or, if the search had been run from the Dashboard, against all possible search modules), therefore, the All tab will be selected. To limit the search to a specific module, click on the name of that module and the search will be rerun, limited to that module
- Search results - The actual search results themselves are displayed, with the most relevance items listed first
Please note that the Advanced Search page can be accessed from the search results page.
Export results to Excel
Click the drop-down arrow next to the search field to see further search options: Advanced Search and Export to Excel.
Advanced Search options can be found here.
Click Export to Excel to export the displayed results in an excel spreadsheet. Depending on your settings you may also have the option to save this to a folder before opening the file.
Click the downloaded file link to open Excel and show the exported results. The outcome is something similar to below:
