Written by User Education

Published: December 20, 2013

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Laserfiche 9.1 features a number of improvements to searching, including more intuitive text search, expanded search options, and context hits and relevance ranking information for more search types.

More Intuitive Text Search

In previous versions of Laserfiche, text searches performed through the Laserfiche Client or Web Access were, by default, performed as phrase searches. This means that search results were only returned if they matched the exact phrase that was typed. For example, a user might perform a text search with the following search terms: meeting John Smith. This search would only return documents that contained the phrase “meeting John Smith.” A document containing the sentence “We held a meeting with John Smith” would not be returned. (If fuzzy search and root word search were enabled, the phrases “meeting John Smyth” or “met John Smith” would be matched, but the prior sentence still would not.) To return that sentence, a more complicated search would have to be performed.

In Laserfiche 9.1, we have adjusted our text search (including basic search and quick search) to make it more intuitive. The above search would return all documents that contain the words “meeting”, “John”, and “Smith”, including the one with the sentence “We held a meeting with John Smith.” The words would not have to be in a single phrase. This is more in line with search functionality that users are already familiar with in web browsers, online search engines, and when searching in Windows.

Users who want to search for a particular phrase can still do so easily from the text search interface by enclosing their search in quotes. By typing “meeting John Smith” exactly, including the quotes, they would match that phrase and only that phrase.

Expanded Search Options and Results Display

In previous versions of Laserfiche, search options such as fuzzy search and root word search were restricted to full-text document searches only. These options could not be used with other search types. In Laserfiche 9.1, these search options are also available for several other search types: sticky note text, text box text, callout text box text, annotation comments, version comments, tag comments, and digital signature signing reasons. In addition, these search types will now be included in context hits and relevance ranking information.

These changes are made possible because the Laserfiche Full-Text Indexing and Search Engine now indexes those properties in Laserfiche. For more information, see Search and Indexing Administration in the Laserfiche Administration Guide.

In addition, administrators can choose to index text and list fields. This is generally recommended for longer, prose-style fields, such as note and comment fields, where fuzzy search and root word search is useful. For more information, see Field Indexing in the Laserfiche Administration Guide.