Searching¶
Global Search¶
Global searching in Combine allows the searching of mapped fields across all Records, in all Jobs.
To perform a search, use the search box in the upper-right in the main navigation bar at the top:
A search term is optional, when blank, returning all Records. This example is using the search term Sketches and scraps
as an example. This should return a screen that looks like the following:
Note the search term Sketches and scraps
has automatically been applied to the table search field in the upper-right of the results table. Modifications to the search can be done here, updating the results in near realtime.
Notice there are 4,023
results out of a total 4,601
Records. Why so many for a search term that seems pretty specific? By default, global search looks for any token in the search string. In this case, it’s likely that and
matched most of those records. The following will outline search options to narrow results.
Global Search Options¶
Clicking the “Show Options” button will reveal a panel of additional search options:
Filter by Organization, Record Group, and/or Job¶
The first section “Organizations, Record Groups, and Jobs” allows for the filtering of results based on Records from those hierarchical levels. The following shows limiting to a Job called “Ramsey”, clicking the button “Apply Options”, and the effect on the results:
The results have dropped to 657
, but still quite a few. The Job filter has been applied, limiting the Records to only that Job (which contains 657
Records), but the search type is still expansive and capturing all Records with the and
token.
Next, we can change the search type to drill down further.
Search Type¶
Currently there exists three search types in Global Search:
any token
- matches any token from the search terms, and is NOT case-sensitive
- default search type
exact phrase
- matches the exact phrase, and only the exact phrase, and IS case-sensitive
wildcard
- allows for the inclusion of a * wildcard character, matching the entire phrase, and IS case-sensitive
Global Search is searching the mapped fields for Records, which are stored in ElasticSearch. As such, the power (and complexity) of ElasticSearch is exposed here to some degree.
Any Token
The search terms provided are tokenized, and each term is searched. This is the most general search.
Exact Phrase
This search type is case-sensitive, and searches the entire search phrase provided, against un-tokenzied fields for all Records. To demonstrate, when applied to the example above, only five results are returned (which all contain the exact, case-sensitive value Sketches and scraps
for at least one mapped field):
Wildcard
This search type can be particularly helpful for searching various identifiers in records, allowing the match of a sub-string in a field’s full, case-sensitive value. For example, we can take a piece of the Record ID
for these Records – 1881b4
– and find Records that match that string somewhere in a field:
Note the wildcard character *
on both sides of the search term, indicating the field value may begin with anything, end with anything, but must contain that sub-string 1881b4
. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the results are the same.
Note: Even blank spaces must be captured by a wild card *
. So, searching for public domain
anywhere in a field would translate to *public*domain*
.
Saving / Sharing Searches¶
Note that when options are applied to the search with the “Apply Options” button, the URL is updated to reflect these new search options. If that URL is returned to, those search options are automatically parsed and applied, as indicated by the following message:
This might be particularly helpful for saving or sharing searches with others.