How to Search in the NetSuite Support Community
There are a few different ways to find content and Categories within the NetSuite Support Community. The various search techniques are outlined below to help guide you in finding items of your interest, or watch our training video to learn more.
Search the Community
On the primary homepage of the NetSuite Support Community, you will see the ‘Search the community’ text box. After you begin typing in your keyword(s), the search function will display similar content based off of matching keywords. You can click on any of the similar content, or, if you do not see exactly what you are looking for in the search results list, you can click enter to navigate to the advanced search.
Within the ‘Search the community’ text box, you also have the option to filter your search to just content within the NetSuite Support Community or to search content across all nodes throughout all of the Oracle Communities on this platform.
The Search Magnifying Glass
The search magnifying glass is located at the top right of the NetSuite Support Community (is always there no matter what page you are in within the NetSuite Support Community). Simply click on the magnifying glass to begin typing in your keyword(s), and the search function will display similar content based off of matching keywords. You can click on any of the similar content, or, if you do not see exactly what you are looking for in the search results list, you can click enter to navigate to the advanced search page.
When using search by clicking on the top right magnifying glass, you also have the option to filter your search to just content within the NetSuite Support Community or to search for content across all nodes throughout all of the Oracle Communities on this platform.
Within both search options (‘Search the community’ and the search magnifying glass), if you are looking for something very specific, there are some additional parameters you can use to help narrow down results.
- “keyword phrase”: A phrase wrapped in quotes must occur in that order.
- +keyword: The keyword must occur in the search result.
- -keyword: The keyword must not occur in the result.
Advanced Search
As described above, there are two primary ways to navigate to the ‘Advanced Search’ page:
- By clicking enter after inserting your search term when using the ‘Search the community’ text box.
- By clicking enter after inserting your search term when using the top right search magnifying glass.
Using advanced search will bring you to a search page with filtering options to narrow down your search. You can filter your search to showcase the following content types:
- All content
- Discussions - which includes discussions, questions, polls, ideas
- Articles
- Places
- Members
You can also sort your search results by:
You have the additional option to use the right side pane to filter your results by:
If searching for Discussions, the right side pane search filters expand to also include the ability to search by Category, Subcategories, only Categories you are following, and narrow down your content type (discussions, questions, polls, and/or ideas).
How are search results ranked?
Ideally, when you type some words in a search box, you want to find something that exactly matches what you had in mind when you started typing. In reality, all that the system can do is find stuff that contains the same words or word forms that you typed. Where the search within the community gets smart is in ranking those search results. The smartest search will put the best results near the top. But what determines the "best" of a search result? Well, there are a few factors that go into search ranking.
- How many words you typed are in the search result - Most search engines incorporate this criteria when ranking your search results. The algorithms involved take a combination of the number of words, the rarity of words, and the order of the words you typed. All these factors are put into a match quality ranking.
- How new or old is the content being searched - Forums generate content at an incredibly fast pace. That content can get stale pretty quickly too. Sorting on keyword match quality would only show too many stale, useless results. Therefore, it’s absolutely necessary to take into account how new or old content is when doing community search.
- How good is the content - As noted in the previous point: forums generate a lot of content and not all of it is good. Well, with the reactions system provided to users, this provides a way of curating the content in the community. When users react positively to a post then it increases in score. This score contributes to a post's search rank.
One word searches. If you search for just one word then the search is automatically sorted by most recent date alone.
