Using Free text search

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You can use the Free text search feature through the Product Master interface.

Before you begin

  • Enable Free text search feature from the Settings > Application settings page of the Persona-based UI. For more information, see Free Text Search settings.
  • Ensure that the account that you have configured for the Free text search meets following requirement:
    • The account should have the Full Admin role.
    • The Full Admin role should have full access on all the catalogs, which are to be indexed. Access can be given by modifying the ACG associated with the catalog to select the Full Admin role and grant all permissions on all the catalogs for the Full Admin role.

  • Navigation

    Upper-right corner > icon

Procedure

  1. Click Free Text Search icon, in the upper-right corner of the interface.
  2. Select the appropriate option (Catalog or Hierarchy), enter the search term, and click Search.
    Table 1. Tasks of the FTS page
    Icon Description
    Open Select an item or multiple items and click to open the Items details page.
    Refresh Click to refresh the search results.
    Catalog
    Checkout Select an item, and click Checkout > <collaboration area> to check out the selected item in the specific collaboration area.
    Save as list Click to open Save as list pop-up window. Enter an appropriate name in the List name field, and click Apply. You can access this saved list anytime through the Saved List option on the Search page.
    Generate Report Click to export search results to a Microsoft™ Excel format. In the Generate Report pop-up window, select the appropriate script, and click OK.
    Note:
    • Specify the value for the number of entries through the Maximum number of entries to be written to a report on Generate Report in Multi Edit list in the Admin UI.
    • The generated report contains the PRIMARY_SPEC details only.
    Actions Select an item, and click Actions > <action name> to open the <action name> pop-up window.
    Note: The Actions icon is only displayed if the entry preview script is configured for the selected catalog or container.
    Clear search Click to undo the search results and reset the search field.
    Publish Click to publish any of the following from the IBM® Product Master.
  3. To display only required attributes in an attribute collection, you can configure attributes that show in the Free text search results by adding the FTS Display Attribute Collection=<attribute collection name> property in the Catalog Attributes. By default, an entire attribute set is mapped to a catalog, and hence the Free text search results can go beyond 200.
  4. To automatically enable a fuzzy search that uses ~ (Tilde), set the value of the fts_enable_fuzzy_search property to True in the restConfig.properties file. By default, the value of the fts_enable_fuzzy_search property is False.
    Fuzzy search
    Format: Append ~ (Tilde) to each word.
    Result: Returns all documents where the search term is found.
    Use the query_string query of the Free text search with the value of the fuzziness parameter as Auto. The Fuzziness is interpreted by using the Levenshtein Edit Distance (Number of one-character changes that need to be made to one string to make it the same as another string). Allowed Levenshtein Edit Distance is:
    • If the length of a word is less than 2 characters, no edit rules. The word must match exactly.
    • If the length of a word is in the range 3 - 5 characters, the Levenshtein Edit Distance allows one edit. For example, Apple word, one misspelling works, but more than that fetches no results.
    • If the length of a word is more than 5, the Levenshtein Edit Distance allows two edits. For example, Apples word, two misspellings work, but more than that fetches no results.
    Note: Due to performance impact, do not use more than four words in the fuzzy search.
    Example
    Search term Search results
    Strxxt~ Street
    NXw~ ZXXland~ New Zealand
    Country=NXw~ ZXXland~
    title=Wenn;city=Auckland Wenn and Auckland
    title=Wenx~;city=Aucklanx~
    Uz~ No results
    Applx~ +Silvex~ Apple with Silver
    Release Date=[2020-01-13 TO 2021-08-14] Results having specified range

Example

Following are the possible search options:

Where,

  • xyz: Search term
  • abc: Second search term
Simple search term
Format: xyz
Result: Returns all documents where the search term is found.
Simple "AND" search
Format: xyz abc
Result: Returns all documents where both the search terms are found.
Wildcard search
Format: xyz*
Result: Returns all documents where the search term is found as an exact match or as a substring.
Important:
  • Do not use any other special character in the search term with Asterisk (*).
  • If you have restricted access (static selection user), do not search by using only Asterisk (*).
Special character search
Format:
  • xyz +abc [Plus sign (+)]
  • xyz -abc [Minus or hyphen sign (-)]
  • x?z [Question mark (?)]
Result: Returns all documents where the search term is found.
List of reserved characters for the search term:

!, (, ),{, }, [, ], ^, ", ~, *, ?, :, \, /

Using a backslash (\), you can escape reserve characters. In the search team, you must use double backslash (\\) to escape reserved characters because the backslash character is also reserved.

To search for an expression 2*3, specify the following search term.

2\\*3

Example
Search term Search results for...
C\\\\03-0608\\\\179858 C\03-0608\179858
#8-32 X 1\\/2\\\" TI FHCS #8-32 X 1/2" TI FHCS
0474290000-NR-\\?\\?-00-00 0474290000-NR-??-00-00
Multiple attribute values search
Format: Attribute1 = Value1 ; Attribute2 = Value2 ; [Attribute3 = Value3]
Specific value search
Example: color=silver OR red.
Specified date range search
Format: Attribute1=[Date1 to Date2].
Result: date = [2019-03-29 to 2019-03-31].
Attribute name search
Result: color=silver;name=iPhone.
Numeric attribute search
Format: Attribute1 = [Value1 To Value2].
Result: price = [2000 TO *] price = [2000 TO 10000].