Search Center

Use the Search Center to search for documents.

You can use the Search Center to search and retrieve internal documents. Depending on what your administrator has set, you might also be able to search documents from intranet sources of your organization or from additional sources.

• Search for content

• Search by scopes

• Search syntax

• Search result list details

• Modifying your search preferences

Search for content

To submit your search query, use the Search box that is available at the side of the portal theme bar.

Depending on your installation and its customization, search might be available by other than the default means.

1. Click the downward arrow that is beside the Search text input field, and select a scope to search from the drop-down list of available scopes. The Search field displays the name of scope you picked. If you do not pick a scope, All Sources (the default) will be searched.

   For details about search scopes refer to Search by scopes.

2. To enter a search query, type your search string over the name of the selected scope in the entry field. For details about the search syntax refer to Search syntax.

3. Click the Search icon (magnifying glass) to launch your query. Search displays the items that match your search terms on the Search Center tab page. The information about the search results appears grouped by columns for relevance, title, owner, and date. For details refer to Search result list details.

4. Change or refine your search using one of the following methods:

   • Refine your search by typing additional words in the Search text entry field. For details about the search syntax refer to Search syntax.

   • Launch a search to a different content location by selecting the search scope as required. For details refer to Search by scopes.

5. To view a result, click that result. Clicking a result leaves Search and opens it in its native application. To return to the previous set of results, click Show Last Results from the Search selection drop-down list.

6. Click Close Search to leave the search results.

To perform more advanced searches, use the Search and Browse portlet, which allows you to select additional parameters that further restrict a search beyond a simple text-string query.

Search by scopes

Scope

Search scopes are used to group or limit searches to one or multiple content locations or document types or a combination of both. You can select scopes from the pull-down list next to the search text entry field.

The following search scopes are available by default:

Search collection	Contents of Result List
All Sources	Documents from Managed Web Content, from any indexed content that you have access to, and from any custom third-party links that have been configured by an administrator display in the same list. This does not pertain to external search services.
Managed Web Content	Documents originating from the Managed Web Content source. This scope is available only if you have a Managed Web Content site.
Custom links	Custom links are displayed in the pull-down selection list next to the search text entry field. They are typically third-party search facilities configured by your administrator
Show last results	Click this option from the Search selection drop-down list to return to the previous set of results, if you have performed a search recently.

Search syntax

To improve the effectiveness of your search queries, follow these guidelines:

• Use more than one word in your search queries.

  The search engine employs a free-text ranking mechanism to locate the best matches for your query. Documents containing more query terms and in close proximity to each other, will receive a higher score.

• Use quotation marks (" ") to retrieve an exact match for your search string.When you use quotation marks, Search checks the position of words in the quoted phrase to make sure they are next to each other and in the order entered, for example:

  • Entering the phrase stock discount can be less precise since it will find results with the word stock or the word discount.

  • Entering the phrase "stock discount" returns results where this phrase appears exactly as you entered it.

  When using quotation marks, the following rules apply:

  • If you forget to use the closing quotation mark, the initial quotation mark is ignored.

  • If you search for strings with special query characters, such as a blank or a colon ( : ), enclose the whole search string within the quotation marks.

  • Single quotation marks (') are not valid operators. Always use double quotation marks (").

• Use the plus sign (+) or minus sign (-) symbolic operators to help narrow the search. A plus sign (+) in front of a term guarantees that every document contains that term. A minus sign (-) in front of a term ensures that every document returned excludes that term, for example:

  "status reports" -weekly +monthly

  The minus sign eliminates or rejects the weekly status reports from the returned result set while the plus sign narrows the search to monthly reports.

• Use an asterisk (*) as a trailing wildcard at the end of a search term, in the format wildcar*, but not *ildcard or wil*card.

Limitations Search has the following limitations:

• Search is not case-sensitive.For example, if you search for content about the country China, the result set might include other documents associated with china (of the pottery kind) unless you include or exclude certain words using symbolic operators.

  +china -pottery +asia

• Search ignores punctuation, such as periods or commas, unless they are enclosed in a quoted phrase.

• Search does not support the use of the logical operators AND, OR, and NOT.

• The less than ( < ) and greater than ( > ) symbols are special HTML characters that Search cannot handle.

Search result list details

The following additional information about the search results is shown:

Data	Description
Relevance	A graphical representation indicates the relevance rank of each item returned in the result set, the most relevant matches having filled bars and the least relevant matches empty.
Title	This displays the item title. Results typically display the file type icon, or the source icon, if the result is not a file, with the returned result title as a link. Clicking the result title leaves Search and takes you to that search result.
Owner	This shows the name of the person most recently associated with the result, such as owner, contributor, sender, or directory listing.
Last updated	This shows when an item was last updated.
Description / Summary	This shows a summary of a returned result item if one has been created by the owner of the returned item. This appears if the option Show/Hide details is switched on.

Modifying your search preferences

You can change the number of results that are shown on your search results page and the preferred language of your search.

1. Click the Search Options drop-down list and then select Set Search Preferences. The Search Preferences form displays the following options:

   Option	Description
   Results per Page	Lets you set how many search results should appear on each result page. You can also set this option by clicking one of the numbers given for Items per page at the bottom of the portlet. This setting applies only for the current session and is reset when you log out.
   Language Preference	Lets you choose the language of your query from the Language drop-down list. By default, the query language is set to the portal locale. An explicit language choice overrides the portal locale settings and returns results from any matching search scope.

2. Click OK to preserve your changes.

Set the search preferences by either of the following options:

1. By using the Set Search Preferences option from the Search Center options drop-down menu. This lets you set the Results per page and the Language preference. These settings are stored separately for each user and applied to all future sessions until they are changed again.

2. By using the Personalize option from the Search Center portlet context menu. This lets you set the Results per page and the Language preference. These settings are stored separately for each user and applied to all future sessions until they are changed again.

3. By selecting Items per page at the bottom of the Search Center portlet. This setting applies only for the current session and is reset when you log out.

Parent topic:

Work with the search portlets

Related information

Manage Search
Search and Browse

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