Advanced Search - Custom Query
Refinements | Custom Query | Search Options | Legal Hold | ![]() ![]() |
The goal of search application is to return the correct document while allowing you to enter a query however you want. The query may be in the form of keywords, a natural language question, or snippets of documents.
Advanced queries include date ranges, Boolean operations, searches on specific document fields, or proximity information to define how close (or how far apart) terms should be to each other.
Field Based Search
When searching emails/files, you can search for data based on any field by typing the field name followed by a colon ":" and then the term you are looking for. Note that the field name is case-sensitive.
The emails can be searched on the following fields:
Fields | Values That Can Be Used | Example |
from | Name or the email address of the sender |
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to | Name or the email address of the receiver |
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cc | Name or the email address of the receiver |
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bcc | Name or the email address of the receiver |
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fmsmtp | SMTP address of the sender |
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tosmtp | SMTP address of the receiver |
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ccsmtp | SMTP address of the person in the cc list |
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bcsmtp | SMTP address of the person in the bcc list |
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rclst | Name or email address of the person in the from, to, cc or bcc list. |
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conv | Subject of the email |
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folder | Location/Path of the folder |
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folder_sort | Exact location/Path of the folder or sub-folder. |
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szkb | Size of the email (in bytes) |
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hasattach | true OR false |
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attname | Name of the attachment |
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datatype | 2 |
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cijid | Content Indexing job id |
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ccn | CommCell number |
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- To search for emails that contain bcc fields, search by keyword bcc:*. The search result will contain all the emails that have bcc field.
- When searching for emails in from, to, cc, bcc ,fmsmtp, ccsmtp, bcsmtp or rclst field, the search result will not contain the data if the field that is being searched is in an email that is in a form of an attachment.
- The values provided in the fields are case-insensitive.
The files can be searched on the following fields:
Fields | Values That Can Be Used | Example |
conv | Subject or name of the file |
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url | Location/Path of the file |
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szkb | Size of the file (in bytes) |
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datatype | 1 |
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cijid | Content Indexing job id |
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ccn | CommCell number |
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The field is only valid for the term that it directly precedes unless the term is given in quotes. For example,
- The query conv: Minutes of Meeting will only find Minutes in the Subject field. It will find of and Meeting in the text field.
- The query conv: "Minutes of Meeting" will find Minutes of Meeting in the Subject field
You can search for data either by typing the keyword in the Compliance Search or in the Query Builder in Advanced Search dialog box.
Searching from Compliance Search
You can type the search query in the search text box in the Compliance Search and click Search.

Searching from Query Builder
Use the following steps to search a raw query text from query builder:
- In the right pane of the Compliance Search, click Advanced Search.
- Click Query Builder.
- Type the query in the box.
- Click Validate Query.
If the query can be parsed by Search Engine, then the message shows that the query is valid and the number of document hits it has obtained.
If the query cannot be parsed by Search Engine, then an error message is displayed.
- Click Submit.
- When performing a search with query builder, keywords in search results are not highlighted.
- By default, the maximum number of Boolean clauses that a query can have is 1024. If the keyword that is searched results in a query that has more than 1024 Boolean clauses, then a message "Error encountered while processing search criteria" is displayed.
Use the following steps to configure the number of Boolean clauses that a query can have:
- Navigate to <software installation path>\CVCIEngine\solr\conf folder.
- Open solrconfig.xml.
- Modify the maxBooleanClauses XML tag to the desired value
For example to include 2048 Boolean clauses in the search query, modify the maxBooleanClauses attribute as:
<maxBooleanClauses>2048</maxBooleanClauses>
- In Advanced Search, If you specify any other search criteria except the search engine along with query builder, then the desired result might not be obtained.
Boolean Operators
Boolean operators allow terms to be combined through logic operators. You can search using AND, OR, and NOT as Boolean operators.
- The OR operator links two terms and finds a matching document if either of the terms exist in a document.
For example,
- To search for documents that contain either "financial calendar" or just "data", you can search using the keyword "financial calendar" OR data.
- The AND operator is a default connective operator. It means that if there is no Boolean operator between two terms, the AND operator is used. The AND operator matches documents where both terms exist anywhere in the single document.
For example,
- To search for documents that contain both "financial calendar" and "financial data", you can search using the keyword "financial calendar" AND "financial data".
- The NOT operator excludes documents that contain the term after operator NOT.
For example,
- To search for documents that contain "financial calendar" but not "financial data", you can search using the keyword "financial calendar" NOT "financial data".
- If none of the terms in a query have explicit operators the individual terms will be implicitly ANDed into the query.
User Input | Query Interpreted As |
Financial Calendar | Financial AND Calendar |
John Doe's Address | John AND Doe's AND Address |
You can perform search with operators like 'AND','OR' and 'NOT' only in uppercase. If the query is submitted with 'and', 'or' or 'not' operators in lowercase, the operators are considered to be a search string and not search operators.
Range Search
You can search for documents whose field values are between the lower and upper bound specified in the query.
In a Range Search, the two terms are enclosed within square brackets ("[]") or curly braces ("{}") and separated by the keyword "TO". For example,
- jid:[105 TO 108]
This search query will have documents that have job id between 105 and 108 (both inclusive)
Square brackets indicate that the specific terms will also match terms in documents. This is referred to as an inclusive range.
Curly braces indicate that the specific terms will not match terms in documents and that only terms between the two will match. This is referred to as an exclusive range.
The following fields can be used in the range search:
- jid
- cijid
- szkb
- clid
- ccn
- apid
- afid
User Input | Query Interpreted As |
cijid:[100 TO 122] | All the documents whose content index job id is between 100 and 122 (both inclusive) |
cijid:{100 TO 122} | All the documents whose content index job id is between 100 and 122 (both exclusive) |
Wildcard Search
You can search for the data with the single and multiple wildcard character within single terms.
- To perform a single character wildcard search use the "?" symbol. The single character wildcard search looks for terms that match with the single character replaced. For example,
- To search for "best" or "test" you can search using the keyword ?est
- Multiple character wildcard search looks for 0 or more characters. For example,
- To search for "bet", "better", "betting" or "betted", you can search using the keyword bet*
- You can use the wildcard search in the middle of a term. For example,
- To search for "books", you can search using the keyword boo*s
- The wildcards are not supported within quoted phrases " ".
- The multiple wildcard searches cannot be applied in phrase queries.
- Space between the word and wildcard character will not yield the desired result.
Grouping
- You can use parentheses "()" to group clauses to form sub queries. This can be very useful if you want to control the Boolean logic for a query or you want to search using different fields. For example,
- To search for "financial" or "calendar" and "data", you can search using the keyword (financial OR calendar) AND data
- To search for emails from an employee XYZ and subject as Data Management Seminar, you can search using the keyword (from: XYZ) AND (conv: "Data Management Seminar")
- Boolean queries without parentheses will be evaluated from left to right. For example, the following are equivalent:
- financial OR calendar OR data AND marketing
- (financial OR calendar OR data) AND marketing
- ((financial OR calendar) OR data) AND marketing
Fuzzy Search
Fuzzy search will search for terms similar in spelling to the search keyword. Fuzzy query is good for matching similar terms as well as catching misspellings.You can do a fuzzy search using the tilde, "~", symbol at the end of single search keyword. For example,
- To search for a term similar to soap, you can search using the keyword soap~.
The search results will contain documents that has "soap", "soup", "soan", "loap", "sap" or "asoap".
For cases in which you want greater or less similarity, an optional similarity ratio can be specified. The similarity ratio is a float ratio written after the tilde,"~" symbol, ranging from 0.0 to 0.999. The default is 0.5. Smaller ratios indicate that less similarity is required. Larger ratios indicate that greater similarity is required. For example,
- To search for a term exactly similar to soap, you can search using the keyword soap~0.8.
Proximity Search
You can search two words in a string that are separated by a specific number of other words by performing a proximity search. To do a proximity search, use the tilde '~' symbol at the end of the search phrase. For example, if the search keyword is Books Online, you can use the search query "books online"~n, where n stands for the number of words (distance) between the two keywords. The search result will display the files that has the search keywords at the proximity level 0 to n.
For example to search for books and online within three words of each other, submit the search phrase as:
"books online"~3
Consider the following when performing a proximity search:
- The order of your search terms matters when performing a proximity search. For example, performing a proximity search of "books online"~3 would only return search results wherein the word books appears before online.
- If you want to perform a proximity search using one or more exact phrases as your search terms, the exact phrase must begin and end with escaped quotation marks.
For example to search for the exact phrase books online and search within three words of each other, submit the search phrase as:
"\"books online\" search"~3
Searching for Special Characters
Special characters are those that are reserved for performing different operations in custom and advanced searches. These characters can be included in search keywords, but they must be formatted accordingly to return the desired results.
For the following special characters:
+ - && || ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \
type a backslash "\" symbol before the special character.
For example,
- To search for a mathematical formula, such as (6*8)^2, type \(6\*8\)\^2 into the search bar.
- To search for a phrase that contains a colon :, such as financial term:, type financial term\: into the search bar.
To search for a phrase that contains a greater than < or less than > symbol, type a space between the individual keywords in the search phrase.
For example,
- The phrase enter <books> online will return relevant search results; however, enter<books>online will not return valid results because the individual search terms are not separated by a space.
Spaces between the keywords play a huge role in the search result. When a search keyword contains spaces between them, then the search result is different for each search keyword.
For example,
- To search for books&&online, you can search with the keyword books&&online (no blank space between the keywords)
- To search for books and online, you can search with the keywords books && online (two blank spaces between the keywords)
- To search for books and && and online, you can search with the keyword books \&& online (two blank spaces between the keywords)
Search within Results
Use the following steps if you want to search for specific files within the search results. This is especially useful when the search result displayed in very large and you want to locate only few files from the list.
- In the right pane of the Compliance Search, click Search Within Results.
- In the Search Within Results dialog box, type the search string.
Saving a Search Query in Query Set
A query set is a collection of queries and keywords that are frequently used for search. It groups all the queries created by the user.
You can save the search query as follows:
- Type the query in the box.
- Click Save Query.
- Type the name of the query in New Query Name box.
- Select the Query Set from the Query Set list or select Create New. For creating a new Query Set , refer to Create a Query Set
- Click OK.
Create a Query Set
Use the following steps to create a query set:
- Click Create New in the Query Set list.
- Type the name of query set in the Query Set Name box.
- Type the description in the Description box. (This step is optional)
- Click OK.
The status message of successful creation of Query Set is displayed.
Share a Query Set
You can share a query set with other users as follows:
- From the Compliance Search, navigate to My Sets | Query Set | <Query_Set>.
- Click Share.
- In the Security dialog box, click Add.
- In the Select User or Group dialog box, select the user with whom you want to share the query set.
- Assign the capabilities for the selected user.
- Click OK.
Delete a Query
- Use the following steps to delete a query:
- From the Compliance Search, navigate to My Sets | Query Set | <Query_Set>.
- Select the query that you want to delete.
- Click Delete.
- In the Confirm Deletion dialog box, click one of the following and click Yes.
- Selected - To delete only the selected queries
- This Page - To delete all the queries in the page
- All - To delete all the queries in the query set.
- Query Set - To delete the query set.
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