How to Search the Knowledge Base
Issue
Searching the KB
Environment
The Knowledge Base
Resolution
How to Search
- Navigate to the search bar that is located in the center of the homepage, if you are in an article or a guide the search bar will be in the upper left corner of the page.
- When searching for knowledge, type what you are searching for by using the customer or requestor's context. When searching for a document, search using the instrument name.
Example: My FID won't ignite
Figure 1: Type the issue into the search bar
Tip: Add an instrument product name to get more specific results.
- The elements of search results:
- The number of search results
- Search results list:
- Page Title hyperlinked to article page
- Page URL
- Page Summary
Figure 2: Preliminary search results
- After preliminary results are displayed, use the available filters, to left of the results list, to view more focused results.
NOTE: Search results update as you type in the search bar and as you choose filters.
Figure 3: Filter results
Tip: Refine your search results by Location, Classification, and whether attachments are included or not in the article you are searching for. Note that Classification only applies to documentation.
Search Tips
| Search String | Result |
|
tag:<Nicolet iS20>+<laser> |
Best matches for articles with the tag "Nicolet iS20" and including word "laser" appear at the top of the search results, followed by the next best matches under tag or search term ("laser" in this case) |
| author:<text> | Lists all pages that are authored by a certain user. The last person to make changes to an article is considered an author. Example: author:JamesV |
| content:<text> | Only searches within the content of a page or file. This does not include titles, tags, file names, descriptions, etc. Example: content:templates |
| date.created:<yyyymmdd*> | Searches for all articles or files created at a certain date. The format is YYYYMMDDhhmmss. You may append an asterick (*) to search for everything within a certain date range. The example shows all articles created in 2014. Example: date.created:2014* |
| date.edited:<yyyymmdd*> | Searches for all articles or files edited at a certain date. The format is YYYYMMDDhhmmss. You may append an asterick (*) to search for everything within a certain date range. The example shows all articles edited in 2015. Example = date.edited:2015* |
| description:<text> | Only searches file descriptions. If multiple words are being searched, they must be wrapped in quotes. Example: description:"image properties" |
| extension:<extension> | Lists only files associated with a certain file extension. Example: extension:csv |
| title:<title> | Only returns search results that are specific to the page title. Example: title:"page" |
| script:"template('<template_path/template_name>/" | Returns pages that contain a specific template. This search does not search templates. |
| -<search constraint> | Add a minus sign next to any of these constraints to exclude options from the search result. Example: editor -tag:customization |
| +<search constraint> | Add a plus sign next to any of these constraints to include options from the search result. Example: editor +tag:customization |
| OR | Displays one query or the other. Searching with multiple words (not a phrase in quotes) always searches with the OR operator. The more relevant search results are boosted if all of the words in the search are in the result. Example: Editor OR Table |
| AND | Only shows articles that include all of the words in the query. Searching with phrases acts similarly to using the AND operator. Example: Editor AND Table |
| NOT | Removes the next word from the search results. This helps when you have a large population of results and know you would like to strip out a specific subset of results. Example: Editor NOT Table |
Analysis
The Knowledge Base search uses a proprietary algorithm to order search results, in other terms displaying the most relevant results from their search index for specific queries. The search algorithm is also optimized by using natural language processing techniques, techniques that allow the computer to understand humans!