Understand how search works in knowledge management

Introduction

Setting up a comprehensive knowledge base is the key to increased customer satisfaction and improved productivity. A knowledge base is created to help you with solutions to the most common customer issues so that you can assist customers quickly. This topic describes how various search methods work in a knowledge base and how you can view accurate search results based on the keywords or operators that you use to search the knowledge base.

Dataverse search is enabled by default in all production environments, except those using their own encryption key. For more information, go to Enable Dataverse search. When Dataverse search is enabled, knowledge management search control uses Dataverse search to search for knowledge articles. For more information, go to What is Dataverse search?. If Dataverse search isn't enabled, the search mechanism switches to full-text search, which lets you run full-text queries against character-based data in SQL Server tables. For more information, go to Full-text search.

Depending on the configurations made in Dataverse search through the Quick Find view columns list, you can view the information provided in search results, such as keywords, description, attachments, or article number. More information: Prerequisites

How search works

By default, the search mode is "any", which means that the search results will include articles that contain any of the search keywords you entered. However, if you have Dataverse search enabled along with the Knowledge search logic option in Settings, the search mode will be set to "all". This means that the search results will return records that contain all the search keywords you entered. More information: Set up knowledge search logic.

However, irrespective of your search settings, you can use the following search methods to search for your knowledge articles.

Boolean operators

AND operator

Use the AND operator when you need to search with a combination of words. The search results will only include articles that contain all the individual terms separated by (+). For example, Delivery + order returns the article Delivery Never Arrived which has Delivery and order in the article content.

• Query: AND operator; denoted by +

OR operator

Use the OR operator to search for either of terms. Search terms separated by a vertical bar ( | ). For example, searching for delivery | order returns records with reference to either term.

Query syntax: OR operator; denoted by |

NOT operator

Use the NOT operator with a hyphen (-) before a keyword to indicate that it should be excluded from the search results. For example, when you search for product, all rows matching the term product will appear in the search results. However, searching for product -order will match all rows that contain the term product but not the term order.

• Query syntax: NOT operator; denoted by -

Wildcards

Use wildcards as placeholders for one or more text characters. Use an asterisk at the beginning or end of a keyword. For example, searching on pro* will show results for all records associated with a keyword that starts with pro. Pro* searches for product, products, and procedure.

• Query syntax: Search term with asterisk at the beginning or end of a keyword.

Exact matches

Use double quotation marks around a keyword to search for an exact match. For example, searching on "order shipping time" will match those exact keywords in an knowledge article. This type of search ignores commonly used words such as a, an, and the.

• Query syntax: Search term with double quotation marks around it.

See also

Add the Knowledge Base Search control to forms Create and manage knowledge articles Understand knowledge base search mechanisms Set up a search provider in Customer Service Hub Add a knowledge article subgrid to a form