Knowledge Base search help

Quick help

Searching tips:

• Use more than one word
• Use only important words
• Check your spelling

Good examples:

• install windows 10
  
• microsoft exchange forward email
  
• locate email address

Bad examples:

• email (Too general; will return hundreds of documents)
  
• How do I locate my cousin's email address at IU? (Too specific; too many words)
  
• analysis of social change (Not related to computing at Indiana University)

Search function

Basics of searching

The KB uses Apache Solr to power its searches. It searches the full text of all KB documents, and returns the documents containing all your search words. For example, a search for computer security would return only documents containing both "computer" and "security", but not documents containing only one of the terms.

Synonyms and stems

The KB uses both the stemming and synonym functions of Solr to match your searches to documents. Stemming allows the term manage, for example, to find documents that contain "manage", "manages", "managed", or "managing". Synonyms will allow a search for license to also match "certify" or "permit".

Neither stemming nor synonyms guarantees perfect results; slight modifications to your searches might find documents that even the best search platforms will miss. Synonyms, in particular, must be hand-maintained by the KM team, and their effectiveness will improve over time.

Quoted searches

Use double quotation marks (") to match an exact, case-insensitive phrase. Use single quotation marks ('), to find an exact, case-sensitive phrase.

However, you cannot combine a quoted and an unquoted term in the same search (e.g., "windows 8" vpn). Try these searches without quotation marks.

Ignored search terms

Many common words (e.g., "the") are ignored in KB searches.

Search by doc ID

See how to search by document ID.

Failed searches

If you cannot find KB documents after following the above guidelines, consider the following:

• Archived documents: You may be looking for documents that have been archived. You can still search for these by clicking the gear icon to access search settings and then selecting Include archived documents before you search.
• Restricted information: If you are searching for documents that are restricted to a particular audience (e.g., the Support Center), you must be logged into the KB to see them in search results. Click Log in toward the top of any KB page to authenticate via CAS.

For help, contact your campus Support Center.