Use Advanced Search

Use search operators and the advanced search filter to get relevant results faster.

SearchUnify provides three Boolean operators, an exact match capability, and two wildcards—for terms and characters.

Fig. A snapshot of an advanced search query.

The query [# content NOT source] finds all those documents that have the keyword content but don't have the keyword source.

An operator works on the word following it. To use an operator on a phrase (more than one word), either enclose the phrase in double quotes or use parenthesis. Examples:

Advanced Search Query Returns Documents with the Terms Returns Documents without the Terms
[salesforce NOT "search engine"] salesforce "search engine"
[salesforce NOT search engine salesforce search
engine
salesforce NOT (search AND engine) salesforce search
  engine

Search Operators

AND or &&

Returns documents containing the terms or phrases on the left and right of AND. The operator is interchangeable with &&. Although AND is used in the examples, you can swap it with && without impacting search.

Examples:

[# content AND source AND DYNAMICS]

Find documents that have all three keywords in them: content, source, and dynamics, irrespective of the order.

Case has no impact on search. DYNAMICS, dynamics, Dynamics, and dYNaMiCs are all processed identically.

[# "content source" AND dynamics]

Find documents that have the phrase content source and the keyword dynamics.

A second way to run a phrase search is to use parenthesis. (content source) AND dynamics finds all the documents that have the phrase content source and the keyword dynamics.

[# content source AND dynamics]

Find documents that have the keyword source and the keyword dynamics.

The phrase content may or may not be present in the documents found.

[# content source AND dynamics client]

Find documents that have two keywords. The first is either content or source and the second is either dynamics or client.

OR or ||

Finds documents containing either of the terms or phrases around OR. The operator is interchangeable with ||. Although OR is used in the examples, you can swap it with || without impacting search.

[# searchunify OR su OR SFY]

Find documents containing at least one of those three keywords: searchunify, su, and SFY.

OR can be clubbed with ANDfor complex queries, such as blog AND (searchunify OR su) returns documents which have blog and either searchunify or su.

SearchUnify processes uppercase and lowercase words in the same manner, so there is no difference between SFY, sfy, and SFy.

[# "content source" OR dynamics]

Find documents that have the phrase content source or the keyword dynamics or both.

A second way to run a phrase search is to use parenthesis. (content source) OR dynamics finds all the documents that have either the phrase content source or the keyword dynamics or both.

[# content source OR dynamics]

Find documents that have either a keyword from content and source or the keyword dynamics.

[# content source AND dynamics client]

Find documents that either of two keywords. The first is either content or source and the second is either dynamics or client.

NOT or Hyphen (-) or Exclamation (!)

Excludes documents that contain the term or phrase followed by NOT. The operator is interchangeable with - and !. Although NOT is used in the examples, you can swap it with - or !without impacting search.

[# Release NOT Mamba] or [# Release NOT Mamba]

Finds documents that have the keyword Release but not the keyword Mamba.

[# Salesforce Service NOT Console]

Finds documents that have either Salesforce and Service but not Console.

However, Console NOT (Salesforce Service) finds documents but not Service Services.

Keywords between double quotes and parenthesis are considered as exact phrases.

[# Salesforce NOT Services NOT Console]

Finds documents that Salesforce but neither of Services and Console.

Double Quotes (" ") 

Double quotes are used to look up phrases as they are.

[# "install searchunify"]

Finds documents that have the phrase install searchunify in that specific order.

A document with only the phrase searchunify install is not returned.

Question Mark (?) and Asterisk (*)

The question mark is a placeholder for a character and the asterisk for a phrase.

# a?l

Finds documents with three letter words where first letter is A and the last letter is L.

The second letter can be any letter or number.

Therefore, each of the following keywords match all, awl, and AOL.

# search*

Finds documents with keywords that have the query search in them.

When search* is run, documents with the keywords, such as searches, searching, and searched, are returned.

Plus (+)

Limits the search to documents that contain the term or phrase following +.

# mamba +23

Find documents that necessarily have the keyword "23", along with "mamba".

Hash (#)

Turn off synonym search. Assume that "tool" and "machine" are synonyms in an instance. In the first example, looking up "tool" brings results contain "tool" and its synonym "machine." 

Fig. A search query without the hash. Synonyms search works.

Prefixing a query with a hash turns off synonym search.

Fig. A search query with the hash. Synonyms search doesn't work.

Advanced Search Form

The most frequently used operators have been added to Advanced Search.

  1. Run a search.
  2. Use the search drop down to refine your query. Three options are available:
    With the Exact Phrase.
    The query will be searched as it is. A search for "recognise" will not find the documents with the spelling "recognize." 
    This option doesn't affect queries in languages, such as Chinese, where words don't decline much, but in languages such as Russian and Korean, the results can be significantly different.
    With One or More Words.
    All the documents containing even one word from the multiword query will be returned.
    "fast food" will return documents containing the terms "fast", "food", and "fast food."
    Without the Words.
    The documents containing the query will be excluded. This is equivalent to adding a hyphen in front of a query in the search box. fast -food find all documents with a mention of "fast" but without "food."
    With the wildcard search.
    In the all the examples in the Search Operators section, advanced search queries start with an #. This field offers a way to run advanced searches without using #. Write your advanced search expression in the fourth field to use it.
    Fig. A snapshot of the Advanced Search dialog.

  3. As long as you see can see Wildcard search label on the search box, you can run advanced searches without a #. To turn off the Wildcard search mode, either remove the label by clicking on the cross button or append a # to your search.

  4. Although a user can run advanced searches with or without a #, in the search analysis reports, advanced searches are always with a #.

Other Features

Here are the other features available on a search results page.

Open Results in New Tab

Results open in a new tab when the left mouse button is pressed and released. To open a result in a new background tab, press the mouse wheel. Right clicking on a result shows the browser menu.

Results Per Page

View up to 25 results right on the first search page, up from the default 10. Scroll down to find Results Per Page and select a value from 10, 15, 20, or 25. The settings will be saved in session history. It means that you will see the preferred number of results during the entire session.

Fig. A snapshot of the search results page, when Results Per Page is 10 (left) and 15 (right).

To return to the default number, start a new session. The setting is available on all search clients and works on all devices. You have already seen Results Per Page on desktops. The next images show how Results Per Page looks like on mobile devices and in Salesforce Console.

Fig. Results Per Page on mobile devices (left) and in Salesforce Console (right).

Facet Search

Facets are a great way to narrow the scope of your search. If you cannot find a facet value immediately, use the search function ().

  1. Run a search.
  2. Click .

  3. Find your facet value and check it.

Search Terminology

  • Term: A string delimited by space characters.
  • Phrase: An array of terms.
  • File: A Microsoft Word document, PDF, webpage, image alt-text, issue, ticket, meta data, or any piece of content that can be crawled and indexed.