Dear CSM: How Can I Make Search Produce More Relevant, Accurate Results?

Great question! For the sake of simplicity, I'll answer your question with the most recent version* in mind (6.3.1 or above).

*If you are on an older version (anything less than 6.1), your Search results are likely not optimal due to that. My 1st recommendation is to GET UPDATED so you are on the latest and greatest and can get the most value for your team. Get with your CSM!

 

To understand how to achieve better results, let's dig into how Search works:

Your Portal WANTS to help you. When you ask it to Search for something, it will literally go through hundreds of thousands of units of information and come running back with ANYTHING and EVERYTHING it thinks is even CLOSE to what you might want.  Unfortunately, for many of our groups, this isn’t ACTUALLY helpful (at first!) 

Does this sound like you and your staff? “If my Portal has 15,000 items in it, and I ask for a Search – the Portal returning 1,500 answers doesn’t REALLY help me. I need it to be more like… 15.” 

The good news is there are some basic things you can adjust in the Portal to help REDUCE FALSE POSITIVE Search Results... and get the right results QUICKLY. 

 

Step One - Restrict for Relevancy:

Look at WHAT your portal is searching – then get rid of clutter that's not relevant to your needs. 

Anything that “can be searched" will also be “delivered.”  We may want to remove or restrict some things from “being able to be” searched so that our Users have a better experience. 

Portal Tools -> Manage Portal Framework -> Search Settings 

You’ll see a list of items there that your portal CAN search, and sometimes, it can be confusing. Let’s talk about WHAT some of the Important Items are (or more importantly, what they are NOT) 

 

Documents

This is literally ANYTHING and EVERYTHING stored in your Portal Documents. If the item can be found in one of those folders, it’s a Document… even when it isn’t. (This is true for Network Docs AND Shared Drive!) 

Example – I have an image file, a photo of my boss (.png) in a folder in my Portal Docs folder.  Even though I think of it as being a “PHOTO”, it’s still considered a “DOCUMENT” because that’s where my portal is looking for it. 

Suggestion: KEEP - You need this one, it is important. Please keep in mind that it encompasses a LOT of things. Staff only get results for content they have Read permission on. 

Pages 

These are the Portal Pages themselves, so YES you need this one! Portal Page Names and Page Tags will populate of course, but so will PTE Content.  It will NOT pull things that appear in a List Island on a Page, nor will it pull Island Titles. 

Suggestion: KEEP - You need this one, it is important. Please keep in mind that it encompasses a LOT of things. Staff only get results for Pages they have access to. 

 
Users 

I think the Portal, on average, is used to find co-workers almost more than anything else! This is important. The Portal will search ALL parts of the Employee Profile, including Custom Fields! (Ask your CSM how Custom Fields can really bring staff together – we have some great best practices there!) 
Suggestion: KEEP - You need this one, it is important. 

 
Photos 

This is NOT “all the images in your Portal.” This is NOT your Staff Profile Photos. “PHOTOS” only refers to the actual “Photo Album” tool inside OnSemble.  If you’re not using the Photo Album (and you probably aren’t) then you don’t need Search (Tool) to Search (Verb) it. 

Suggestion: REMOVE – Unless you are using the Photo Album Tool AND have a need to Search it, you can remove this. 

Conversations / Announcements 

I feel the same way about both of these, so I combined them here.  Announcements and Conversations are both pretty “situational.”  If you’re looking for a specific one, there’s probably a reason. 

Unfortunately, if you use these tools a LOT, then that gives the portal a LOT of things to kick back to you as a “Result.”   Is it more important that all staff be able to find the “Current Rates” document or that staff get back a search that includes every time “Current Rates” was mentioned in an Announcement? 

Note: You can always search your Announcements by “date” on the Announcements Island itself, even if you remove Announcements from Search. 

Suggestion: SITUATIONAL – I personally lean more towards removing these – you can always add them back if folks complain. Or, if you have specific people who REALLY want to be able to sift all Announcements, then create a Role for them and give those staff the ability to do so without impacting everyone else’s search experience. 
 

*The next few items, you may or may not have in your list of options, depending on what Add-On Applications or Customizations your Portal has. See your CSM for details.* 

 
Procedures 

Along with “Forms” this might be the MOST misunderstood Search. Let’s say you have a Procedure (“How to set up Direct Deposit”) in your Portal Documents. You think of it as a Procedure, right? Your Portal DOES NOT. 

As far as the Portal is concerned, your “How to Set Up Direct Deposit” is a DOCUMENT (see above) not a Procedure.  “Procedure” in this case refers VERY specifically to things that are in the “Procedures” section of the Products and Services Add On Application. 
Here’s why – Products and Services ‘Procedures’ aren’t NORMALLY stored in the Portal Documents, so we had to give the Portal a way to find them. (Pro Tip: If you ARE storing your P&S Procedures in your Portal Documents, then go ahead and remove/restrict!) 

Suggestion: REMOVE or RESTRICT – If you are actually using Products and Services AND you are using the “Procedures” piece, then Restrict who can “Search” Procedures by Role (Front Line Staff only, for example) This gives Users in that Role the ability to do so without impacting everyone else’s search experience. 

Products 

Much like Procedures above, this only shows up if you have Products and Services installed. A positive Search result here will send your Users to that specific Product in Products and Services.  

Here’s why – Products and Services ‘Products’ aren’t the same as Pages, so we had to give the Portal a way to find them.  

Suggestion: KEEP (if you are using Products and Services) but perhaps Restrict by Role. 

 
Forms 

Along with “Procedures,” the most misunderstood item in this list.  Let’s say you have a Form (“Application for Direct Deposit”) in your Portal Documents. You think of it as a Form, right? Your Portal DOES NOT. 

As far as the Portal is concerned, your “Application for Direct Deposit” is a DOCUMENT (see above) not a Form.  “Form” in this case refers VERY specifically to things that are part of the Form Builder Add On Application. 

Here’s why – Form Builder ‘Forms’ aren’t stored in the Portal Documents, so we had to give the Portal a way to find them. 

Suggestion: KEEP (if you are using Forms)  

Vendors 

This is part of the Vendor Management Add On Application, and a very important one, at that. If you are using Vendor Management, you do need this piece – BUT if you are using Vendor Management very well, then there’s a LOT of info in there. So, what do you do?  

Suggestion: RESTRICT Limit who “gets back” Vendor results to the team members who use the Vendor Management tool. You can do this by Role. 

 

Now on to Order...

Once you’ve decided what is staying/going/being restricted, we can look at the order you sort by. You can move items up or down the list. This DOES NOT change the order in which results are displayed – only what it looks like on the Search Screen. (And really, only the top three matter) 

You can see below, the list shows Documents, Pages, Users as the top three:

 

When I perform a Search, Documents, Pages and Users are there in the bar below. The other items appear in a dropdown over to the right under “More”

So how does that help? Well, you can see that I searched “sarah” and the Top Result was a Document. I’m all over this portal, so there’s a LOT of Documents and Pages with my name on or in them. If I click where it says “User” then the Portal will only display Users with “sarah” in the Profile. 

Teach your staff what this feature is. It will improve their lives. 

 

Remove and Restrict:

Let’s teach you how to Remove and Restrict.  Go back to Portal Tools -> Manage Portal Framework -> Search Settings and choose an Item to Remove or Restrict. 

Click Change.  

 

Looking at my example above – if I don’t want anyone in the “Employee” Role to get back Search Results with Announcements in them, I just need to Remove that Role.  

Restrict is similar. Thinking of my Vendor Example above – I’d remove Employee and add in my Vendor Role – if you don’t know how to set up Portal Roles, or why you should, ask your CSM!) 

 

On to Part Two - DTSearch:

“ALL of the Nectarines, not ANY of the Peaches. Off the tree.” 

Let’s talk about three Portal Settings that you can adjust to improve Search.  ALL/ANYWORDS, Fuzziness and Stemming.  Please note : these settings ONLY impact your Documents, no other part of Search (Users, Pages, etc) 

 

ANYWORDS vs ALLWORDS: 

This is a feature that is either ON or OFF. There is no in between, and it’s set for the ENTIRE portal.  

Let’s say that I am looking for a specific document. I know the name is “something-something Safe Deposit Box Abandonment” and I use it when I need to close a Safe Deposit Box for missing payment. I type Safe Deposit Box into Search and the results are going on for DAYS…. Why? 

Well, if your Portal is set to ANYWORDS then it’s going to come back with everything it can find with Safe OR Deposit OR Box, and any combination of those words. If the goal is to reduce the results from 15,000 -> 1,500 -> 15 then let’s change this to ALLWORDS. 

ALLWORDS requires a search result to have all.of.the.words. So, if I type Safe Deposit Box into Search, results MUST have all three words.  (This can be a little restrictive, if staff begins to grumble about too few results, you may need to change this back.) (Rackspace Users, we have to do this for you) 

Module Tools -> dtSearch -> Module Properties 

In the drop down, choose SearchType. Change the property value to ALLWORDS. 

 

Fuzziness: 

This is a feature that can be either ON or OFF. If you decide to have it ON, then there is a separate Range setting. Regardless, you’ll decide Fuzziness for the ENTIRE portal. 

What is Fuzziness? Fuzziness allows your Portal to return results that are similar to, but not exactly, what you were looking for. Typing PLNA will get you back PLAN, as an example.  

The Fuzziness range can be set anywhere from 1 – 10. FYI, default in the Portal is 3 – if you’ve never changed it, that’s what it is.  That means that up to three things can be ‘off’ and you’ll still get results.  

Example : Typing comuptir will get me computer, but worse than that – the “score” sees them as the SAME because fuzziness of 3 is ALLOWED. 

Well, what does that mean then? What if we reduce Fuzziness?  You can, but honestly, I like to suggest by turning it OFF. (If you turn it off, and it’s too strict, you can always turn it back on.)  Let me show you why. 

Let’s say I reduce Fuzziness to 1. I can type in MAP (which is exactly what I meant to type) and with a Fuzziness of 1,  I will get back the following results as well…  MAD MAG MAY and  GAP TAP ZAP and MEP MOP MUP.   

(“Really? MEP MOP MUP?”  Yeah, because that’s also homophone, thermophile, homepage, nameplate, warmup… do you see where this is going?) 

If the goal is to reduce the results from 15,000 -> 1,500 -> 15 then let’s turn this OFF, or at the very least, reduce it. (Rackspace Users, we have to do this for you) 

In the drop down, choose EnableFuzzySearch. Change the property value to false to turn Fuzziness off. 

In the drop down, choose Fuzziness. Change the value to something lower, if you’re going to leave Fuzziness on. Try 1. 

 

Stemming: 

This is a feature that is either ON or OFF. There is no in between, and it’s set for the ENTIRE portal.  

Stems are add-ons to the end of words. Examples of stems include suffixes like -ed or -ing - If you ALLOW stemming, then your portal will give you results you didn’t ask for. With Stemming ON, searching “apply” will also find results for “applying,” “applied,” and “applies”.   

If the goal is to reduce the results from 15,000 -> 1,500 -> 15 then let’s turn this OFF. (Rackspace Users, we have to do this for you) 

Module Tools -> dtSearch -> Module Properties 

In the drop down, choose EnableStemming. Change the property value to false. 

 

That's all for today!

If you aren't confident in making these changes & decisions on your own, please reach out to your CSM for some support wrangling these settings. 

We welcome your feedback and ideas as we continue to improve your OnSemble experience, so please also be sure to share that!