Using Enterprise Application Search

[Using IFS Enterprise Explorer Clients] [Searching & Organizing Information in IFS Enterprise Explorer] [To Searching and Organizing in Enterprise Explorer]

Explanation

Use Enterprise Application Search (EAS) to quickly find the information you need. With EAS you are able to perform Google-like searches within IFS Applications by simply typing a text in the Search bar at the top right of the Application. For example type a customer name, and EAS will present a list of objects containing the customer name sorted by relevance. Just click on the link you are interested in and a page related to the object will open with the information you need. IFS Security is built in which means that you can only see what you are allowed to see. 

You specify which search domains you want to use, for example Customers, Customer Orders, Suppliers, Purchase Orders etc. and this is stored in your user profile. Note that the search domains are usually configured, e.g. prepared to be used, by the System Administrator.

Prerequisites

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System Effects

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Window

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Related Window Descriptions

Application Search Results

Procedure

Contents

Using Enterprise Application Search

Follow these steps to perform a search

  1. You can type a text in the Enterprise Application Search Bar found at the top right of the application or use the Google like search box found in the middle of the search page and click the Search button. For example, type a customer name, customer address or a customer order number.



Figure 1: Search Text Box for entering search criteria 
 

  1. The first time your enter a search text and initiate a search by pressing Enter on your keyboard or clicking on the magnifying glass icon, you are presented with a page where you have to select which search domains you want to use. A list of available search domains will be displayed from where you can select one or multiple search domains. E.g. if you select Customer as a search domain, you can search on all customer-related information, customer IDs, address etc. Clicking on the search domain you want to use makes it selected and you can see a tick mark with selected green background. To quickly identify the needed search domains you can use a filter available at the top left side. Your selection of search domains is stored on your user profile and will be used in future searches. You can change selected search domains at any time by clicking on Search Domains next to the search field. Note: Right-mouse click to open the context menu which includes additional options, selecting all, unselecting all or invert selection.



    Figure 2: The page showing selected search domainsins

     
  2. The search result will be presented in a list sorted by relevance. The hits based on your search text will be highlighted in purple. The initial view will have the top search hits out of the total results limited to a default of 25, how many top hits you want to see can be modified by the user by clinking on Settings, read more about this in the Configure Search Results Layout section. You can also filter your search results based on the search domains you selected by clicking on the boxes which appear at the top of the results named after each search domain. You can click on the Title of each search result you are interested in to open the connected page populated with the detailed information, customer basic data page, order detail page etc.



    Figure 3: Search Results
     
    Each result entry (hit) consists of the:
    • Title: The Title is an active link if the Indexed Location has a registered home page in the application. Clicking the link will navigate to the page and display the object.
    • Summary: The Summary highlights the attributes found from the search criteria so it can be viewed in its context.
    • Image: If search result contains any images, the first image will be displayed as a thumbnail. If not a default placeholder image will be shown. You can set this default image using the "Settings, Show  image on search Results". By default this is in checked state.
    • Indexed Fields: The Indexed Fields show what fields were used to Index the search domain and related result values for each field. You can click on the expand button to get the necessary information related to this.
    • Information Card: If the search result contains any Information Card, details related to this will also be shown.
    • Search Domain : The Search Domain display name will be shown at the bottom.

 

Configure Search Results Layout

You can decide how you want the search result presented, by controlling the the number of results to be displayed either in Maximum Top Hits or Maximum Hits per Search Domain. Also the image thumbnail on search results can be set to false by using Show image on search Results. Remember to click the green check icon to save the settings after you have modified. Settings dialog will close if you click anywhere outside the dialog.


Figure 4: EAS Settings dialog

 

When viewing an Enterprise Application Search result you can initiate a multi selection mode from clicking the rightmost Multi Selection image found next to Settings. Thereafter the user can highlight several records by clicking on the search results and do the following:


Figure 5: EAS Multi Selection Mode

Create a Selection

If you have selected several results of the same Search Domain you can add the search result to a selection. Right Click on the list of results and click Add to Selection to add the result items to the selection and name the selection.




 

Figure 6: Adding search results to a selection

Note: The selection can only be created with the items of the search domain. So when searching in more than one search domain, and the result shows hits for multiple search domains Add to Selection is only enabled for the items of the same search domain.

 
 Search Syntax

A common web search syntax as follows can be used to query the application search.

Syntax Meaning of Query
saab* words starting with saab
saab volvo either saab or volvo
+saab volvo records including saab, and records including volvo are ranked higher
saab -volvo records including saab, but not including volvo
+saab +volvo records including both saab and volvo
identity:alain records that has alain in the identity field
"This is a phrase" match the exact phrase field

Table 1: Search syntax and meanings

 

View Details of Multiple Objects in the Search Result

Highlight more than one search result within the same search domain the search result. Right click and click "Show Details...". All the objects connected to the object are presented in detail pages.