A variety of search options, including the ability to search using terms or phrases, can be used to find information in the Knowledge Base or using any full text search fields included in system search screens. Search options include:
A single character wildcard search using the ? symbol
A multiple character wildcard search using the * symbol
A fuzzy search using the tilde, ~, symbol at the end of a single word. For example, to find words similar to roam, enter roam~ and this will return terms like foam and roams.
When searching using a phrase, the group of words need to be entered in the Text field within double quotation marks, for example, "user account access". Complex searches can be conducted using a combination of phrases or terms with boolean operators and all search results are relative to the Team assignment of the User or Item ownership for a Customer.
The boolean operators (i.e., AND, NOT, OR, +) must be entered as uppercase letters. For example:
"user" OR "account" returns results related to either word
"user" AND "account" returns results with both words
"user" NOT "account" returns results including "user" but not "account"
+user account returns results that must contain "user" and may contain "account"
"user" -"account" returns results that contain "user" but not "account". (Same results as using NOT.)
To further control the boolean logic, more complex searches can be conducted. For example, to search for either "user" or "account" and "access", the search words would be entered as: (user OR account) AND access. This will return results where "access" must be included, while either term of "user" or "account" is found.
Fuzzy logic searches using the '~' (tilde) can be performed on a single word term with the '~' at the end of the word. A value between 0 to 1 can also be applied to the search, where the value closer to 1 ensures terms with higher similarity are matched. If a value is not defined, the default of 0.5 is applied to the search. For example, roam~ should return results with similar spelling, like foam and roams. The search term of roam~0.8 might return words like roams, roamed.
Wildcards can be used to replace single character '?' and multiple characters '*' in search terms. For example, te?t, test* or te*t. Wildcards can not be used as the first character of a search.
Proximity searches can be used to find words in a phrase within a specific distance away from the entered search term. To conduct a proximity search use "~" at the end of the phrase. For example, "user account"~10 will search for results where the word user and account are within 10 words of each other.
Escape character searches are also supported in the system and include: + - & || ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \
An example of using escape characters when searching for (1+1):2, requires the search syntax of \(1\+1\)\:2 to be entered. It should be noted that the '\' must be entered before the escape characters.
Within the system full text searches can be conducted on specific fields, these include:
Search Screen |
Fields |
|---|---|
Request |
Subject, description, notes, attachments and solution. |
Item |
Number, itemtype, category, attachments and notes. |
Knowledge Base |
Title, summary, body, attachments, itemtype, classification, and custom1-5. |
Forum |
Title, content and author (last name). |
To search on a specific field, within the Term or All Text field enter
the name of the field to be searched on followed by a colon and the term
or text. For example, if searching for a specific Title, the Term or All
Text search field would be completed as follows for the various search
types:
single word search - title:canceled
phrase search - title:"canceled ticket"
multiple word search - title:canceled OR title:ticket.