How to Get the Most of Enterprise Search

Davina Erasmus and Maarten Laruelle

In 2016 we all know how to search … or do we?

Just entering a term in a search box is similar to…

…searching for a lost cat with a stick drawing

How do you make your search more targeted?

Filtering search results

Determine beforehand which data and which fields will help users to filter results

Add these as filters to the system

Talk to your user groups and determine which fields

• Are most important to each group• Are used for quick recognition of results• Should be searchable in partial searches

Add the most important fields to the search scope of suggest search and search

This can greatly increase users’ search efficiency by providing useful results back

Configure Suggest Search and Search for user groups

Configure Suggest Search and Search for user groups

Add the fields that can be used to quickly identify the right result to the returned search result

Adjust the styling on the important fields to make the values stand out easily

Helps users visually find the correct result faster

Partial Search

Partial search is also useful for finding ranges. To make it more useful add the fields that users have identified as most important to the scope of partial search system-wide

Use synonyms to broaden the search horizon

Brainstorm most common synonyms used by group and add them as default per language

Brainstorm synonyms for key terms per project or campaign and add them for duration of project or campaign

Equality Synonyms

Users are equally likely to use any of the terms all the time

E.g. users don’t have a cultural or other preference for describing stripes as being broad, wide or thick

Expansion Synonyms

Users likely to always use one term in searching but content contains a range of different terms

E.g. users always search for metallic while assets are marked gold, chromed, plated

Metallic=> gold, chromed, plated, metallic

Contracting Synonyms

Users likely to use a number of terms in searching but content always contains one specific term

E.g. users don’t have preference for self-sticking, pre-glued, self-pasting, pre-pasted when looking for wallpaper but technical term on assets is pre-pasted

self-sticking, pre-glued, self-pasting => pre-pasted

Manage based on search behavior

Content administrators can use correlations in search data to help users get the most out of their searches

Check search logs for trending searches

Surface trending searches to users by creating saved and shared views and adding synonyms to surface the results in more searches

Check search logs for zero search result sets

Regularly check the log for zero result searches and determine a course of action to help users find what they are looking for

Possible reasons for zero result searches:• User does not have access to the search result set• New assets for which records are not complete• User is using terms that are not used on the content

Curate content with saved and shared views

Help users find relevant content easily by saving search results and sharing it with users and groups

For example: Save a search that finds incomplete records within a campaign and share with users

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