Business case
Studies have shown that companies lose a lot of time each day by employees having to search for the information they need to do their work. Information is spread across different applications and sources, meaning employees are constantly switching between applications for what they need. We created the Global Search to instantly search through the entire digital workplace, saving you time.
About Global Search
The Global Search is one of our most frequently used and highly valued features. The Global Search has been given a prominent position at the top of your digital workplace.
We will keep adding more features to the Global Search to allow users to refine their searches, save time, and find specific information even faster. The advanced search feature will empower users to dig deeper into their content and gain valuable insights.
Search by category
The Global Search features a number of categories you can use to search: "Top", "Announcements", "Apps", "Email", "Files", "Folders", "Knowledge articles" and "People".
It will show a maximum of 3 items per category. "Top" is the default search category, which presents the top 5 results based on which search categories the user clicks the most (Workspace keeps track of this).
Keep in mind:
You can only search through your SharePoint and OneDrive documents. Global Search does not support file servers due to WebDAV limitations.
The open preference for files in Global Search is based on what has been configured in the Documents app.
Your Global Search may also contain the "OpenIMS" or "Egnyte" category. This is only available if your company uses it and if an connection is configured by the Workspace admin.
To see the People tab, two requirements must be met:
Users must have access to the Address book
Exchange must be configured
Recent searches
Your last 3 searches are saved under Recent searches, which appears automatically when you open the Global Search. You can use this to your advantage if you have to regularly find files or emails containing certain keywords.
You can delete a search from Recent searches by highlighting it and clicking the x. Doing so will add your fourth latest search to Recent searches.
Advanced search
This will open a new interface with extra search options for more targeted searches, allowing you to easily and quickly find what you're looking for. Advanced search allows you to specify you search. For example, you can search by name, date, specific file types, source or show results based on "all" or "title". Scroll down to view more results.
Depending on the category you have selected in Advanced search, you will see different filters.
Let’s say that you have a file named "HR", which contains the word "payslip". In this case, searching for the term "HR" will always find this file, as it always looks at the file name. Searching for the term "payslip" will only find the file under "All" tab, because "payslip" is in the content but not in the file’s name (title).
Are you a self-hosted partner? Please refer to the documentation about Elasticsearch, which provides full-text search capabilities for Hub items.
Best practices
Can’t find what you’re looking for? Use Global Search to search through announcements, apps, email, files, folders, knowledge articles and people.
Advanced search will open a interface with extra search options, which allows you to specify your search and to view more search results.
If you forgot the name of a file, but do remember some of its content, click on "Advanced search" and look under the "All" tab. Here, you will most likely will find the file you were looking for. Additionally, the "File type", "Last modified" and "Sort by" filters give you more control over the search you want to perform, helping you to find the file faster.
Use "Recent searches" to your advantage to find information faster. Remember that you can also access your bookmarks from the Documents live tile.
Create recognizable names for your applications, documents, etc., to gather information faster.
Be as specific as possible when you enter search terms to get the best, most-targeted results.
Searches are not case-sensitive. However, avoid spelling mistakes at all times.