Setting Up Search Items

This topic describes how a system administrator sets up the application search feature. This is only for on-premises installations.

Before you can set up the search feature, the following must be true:

  • The Full-Text component must be configured on the application SQL database.

    If this feature is not configured, the Full-Text Indexing form in the application will not open and will display an error message.

  • During application installation or upgrade, the Application Search Service for Office must be installed on the web/utility server. For more information see the application's Installation Guide.

For information about how to use the feature in Microsoft Office, see the application's Microsoft Office Integration Guide.

To create the catalog, indexes, and search items:

  1. A system administrator must create the catalog before the search feature can be used:
    1. Open the Full-Text Indexing form in the application..

      If the full-text component is not installed for this instance of Microsoft SQL Server, an error message displays and the form closes. See the Prerequisites, above.

    2. The form initially requires you to create a catalog.

      In some cases, a script exists that can create predefined full-text indexes on certain tables. If that script exists for your application, an Apply Script check box is enabled and selected. The script runs when the catalog is created.

    3. Click Create Catalog.

      The catalog is created, the script is applied, and the second page of the Full-Text Indexing form is displayed.

    Note: After the catalog is created, the initial "Create Catalog" page does not display when you open the form. You will skip directly to the second page.
  2. After the catalog is created, system administrators uses the Full-Text Indexing form to create additional indexes on tables or views as needed. To see any existing unique index names for a table, select the table and then look at the drop-down list for Index Name. When you select a table that already has a full-text index, the index information displays in the section below and the Drop Index button is enabled.
    Note:  Before you can create a full text index on a multi-site table, the table must have a unique, single-column index. To determine if a table is multi-site, use the SQL Tables form to view information about the table. If the Multi-Site field is selected for the table, then determine whether the table already has a unique, single-column index. If it does not, then use the SQL Tables form to create a unique, single-column index on the RowPointer column of the table.

    To create a new full-text index:

    1. In the Full-Text Indexing form, select a table in the Table Name field.

      This table must have at least one unique index.

    2. Select an index for the table from the Index Name field.

      The list includes all unique indexes on the table.

      Note:  For best performance, we recommend that you select the smallest of the unique indexes on a table.

      For example, the vendaddr table has two unique indexes: one based on the vendor number and the other based on the RowPointer. The unique key based on the vendor number might be smaller than the one based on the RowPointer.

    3. Select the table column(s) that you want to include in the full-text queries.

      You can only select a text type column.

    4. Click Create Index.

      You are prompted to verify that you want to create the index.

    5. Click Yes.

    This form provides only basic full-text creation. You can create a full-text index outside of this application, if advanced settings are required. For indexes created through this form, change tracking is set to Automatically, which means full-text indexes are updated automatically when changes occur to the underlying data. Also, full-text indexes created through this form are attached to the Search Catalog by default.

  3. A system administrator creates search items based on the search indexes.  All "active" items defined in the Search Items form participate in the Search Service.

    In addition, search items defined in the Search Preference List form are based on the search items defined in the Search Items form; however, those search preferences are used only for SmartLink.

    To set up search items:

    1. In the Search Items form, specify a name for the search item.

      Make sure this name fully describes the information that will be returned to the user, because end users choose search items based on their names.

    2. Specify Active when you want the search to be available to users.

      Clear this check box to turn off this search item so that it is not included in Microsoft Office application searches from the Search Service.

      The search item is also not included in SmartLink.

    3. Select the column and table name to be searched for matching items.

      Tables and columns are listed only if an index is defined for them in the Full-Text Indexing form.

    4. Use the Search Result fields to specify what displays when a user requests a search on some text in a Microsoft Office application:
      • Form Name - The search result can include a hyperlink to open a form and display more details about the search term. Select a form from the drop-down list. The hyperlink can contain a filter statement using a property name.

        For example, you could specify CustNum='C00010'.

      • Title - (optional) Select a column from the selected table that can be used to display the title of the search result.
      • Description - Select a column from the selected table whose value is used as the description for the search result.
    5. Save the search item definition.  

For example, a Microsoft Outlook user often receives e-mails that contain item numbers.  The user wants a quick way to refer to the description of the item that is stored in the application database.

You create a search item named ItemDescription that searches the item column in the item table for an item number that matches the one sent from the user's Microsoft Office application. Your search item's Search Result section  is set up to return this information to the Office application:

  • Title Column Name: text from the item.description table/column for the specified item number
  • Description Column Name:  text from the item.overview table/column for the specified item number
  • Form Name: A link that opens the Items form in the application Web client, filtered on the specified item number
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