PeopleSoft Applications Portal 9.1 PeopleBook: Using Portal Features

Submitting Searches in the Portal

This chapter provides an overview of searching in the portal discusses how to submit searches requests.

Understanding Searching in the Portal

You perform searches of PeopleSoft Applications Portal content by specifying a search string and search scope in the portal header. Once you have viewed results on the Search page, you can refine your original search or specify entirely different search criteria and scope. You can also search for content by executing saved searches.

Your portal administrator can configure search in the portal header to use scoped search or to use Application Search. In addition to searches from the portal header, you can perform searches directly from within specific features using the Search link.

Important! PeopleSoft Applications Portal content is not dynamically indexed. Except for content that has been deleted, the search results are only as current as the last time the search indexing process (or processes) ran. It is the responsibility of the portal administrator to ensure that search indexing is performed on a regular schedule.

See Building Search Indexes.

Scoped Search

Scoped search enables users to search from the portal header within specific PeopleSoft Applications Portal features, such as action items, blogs, calendars, the content management system, discussion forums, workspaces, and so on. PeopleSoft Applications Portal is delivered with scoped search as the default in the portal header.

In the following example, the Portal scope is selected for the scoped search:

Scoped search in the portal header

Search scopes are defined based on index groups and the indexes must be maintained by the portal administrator. In the portal header, a user can select only one scope at a time.

The remainder of this chapter provides information on submitting searches using scoped search.

See Submitting Search Requests.

Application Search

In PeopleTools 8.52, the PeopleSoft Search Framework was introduced. This search framework consists of PeopleSoft components (pages and records provided by PeopleTools), which provide a centralized interface for configuring PeopleSoft integration with a back-end search engine, creating search artifacts like search definitions, search categories, and building and maintaining search indexes. Oracle Secure Enterprise Search (SES) is the back-end search engine on which the PeopleSoft Search Framework relies.

Along with the search framework, PeopleTools 8.52 also introduced Application Search, which provides a way for a user to search across all or a specific group of search indexes. Application Search is available in the portal header throughout the user's session irrespective of the content the user is accessing in the target frame. It allows the user to search and drill down to a specific row and transaction from the search results without navigating to the classic component search page. In a PeopleSoft Applications Portal environment, Application Search can be configured to search across indexes from multiple content provider systems.

In the following example, Application Search has been configured for a PeopleSoft Applications Portal system, which integrates PeopleSoft Applications Portal's search scopes into the Application Search context. In this example, the Portal scope is selected for the Application Search scope:

Application Search in the portal header

Configuring your PeopleSoft Application Portal system to use Application Search is an optional step in deploying search on your system.

See Configuring PeopleSoft Applications Portal for Application Search.

Searching Within Specific Features

In addition, many features in PeopleSoft Applications Portal provide a Search link that allows you to search for content within the scope of that feature. You can search within each of the following:

Action item lists

See Searching Within Action Item Lists.
Blogs

See Performing Searches Within Blogs.
Calendars

See Searching for an Event.
Content management folders

See Searching for Content.
Discussion forums

See Performing Searches Within Discussion Forums.
Resource Finder

See Performing Resource Finder Searches.
Tags

See Searching for Tags.
Workspaces

See Searching Within Workspaces.

Submitting Search Requests

This section discusses how to submit a search

Pages Used to Submit Search Requests

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
Search	EO_PE_SRCH_RESULT	In the portal header, select the search scope, enter the search string in the Search field, and press ENTER. In the portal header, enter the search string in the Search field, select the search scope, and click the GO button. On the Search page, enter the search criteria and click the Search button. On the Search page, select a saved search in the Saved Search drop-down list box. Click the link for a search in the Saved Searches pagelet. Click the link for a search on the Saved Searches page.	Perform a search on all content in the portal for the selected scope.
Search Tips	EO_PE_SRCH_TIPS	Click the Search Tips link on the Search page. Click the Search Tips link on the Saved Searches Detail page.	View search tips.

Submitting a Search

Access the Search page (in the portal header, enter the search string in the Search field, select the search scope, and click the GO button).

Use the Search page to perform a search on all content in the portal for the selected scope, and to review the search results.

Saved Search	Select and immediately execute a saved search.
Search For	Enter the search text. Note. Searches in PeopleSoft Applications Portal are case insensitive. In addition, you can use a wildcard character * and logical operators such as AND, OR, and NOT. See Search Considerations and Syntax.
Scope Name	Select the search scope: Action Items — Search all action item lists. Blogs — Search all blogs, posts, and comments. Calendars — Search all calendars and events. Content — Search all content management folders and items. Discussions — Search all discussion forums, topics, and replies. Portal — Search the portal registry and crefs. Resource Finder — Search resource finder profiles. Workspaces — Search collaborative workspaces and workspace content.
Search Within Results	Select this option to restrict the search to the current result set.
Search All Sites	Select this option to search across all sites to which you have access.
Search	Click to execute the search.
Save Search	Click to access the Saved Searches Detail page to name and save the current search.
Edit Searches	Click to access the Saved Searches page to review your saved searches.
Search Tips	Click to display search syntax and examples on the Search Tips page. Note. Searches in PeopleSoft Applications Portal are case insensitive. In addition, you can use a wildcard character * and logical operators such as AND, OR, and NOT. See Search Considerations and Syntax.

Search Results

The Search Results scroll area displays the results of your search.

<title>

Click a link to access that item.

Note. If the item is in a workspace or a different site, the item is opened in a separate browser window.

Tags

Click a tag to access the Search Tags page with a search on the selected tag.

See Searching for Tags.

Rating

Presents the Verity relevance rating for the item.

Search Considerations and Syntax

Remember these considerations as you construct searches and review search results:

Searches in PeopleSoft Applications Portal are case insensitive. Therefore, searching for portal is equivalent to searching for Portal and PORTAL.

Note. While search terms and operators are case insensitive, for ease of reading the examples in this section, we use all caps to distinguish search operators such as AND, OR, and NOT from search terms.
Many special characters are stripped out of the search string. Therefore, we recommend you avoid using the following special characters in your searches:
```
,  !  @  #  $  %  ^  &  (  )  *  +  =  {  
}  [  ]  :  ;  "  `  <  >  ?  /  .  |  \
```

Searches in PeopleSoft Applications Portal use the following syntax:

exact phrase	Enter an exact phrase without enclosing quotation marks. For example: PeopleSoft Applications Portal For example: stock options
*	Use * as the wildcard character. For example: * — Returns all items for the selected search scope. For example: people* — Returns all items with terms such as people, PeopleSoft, or PeopleTools, and so on.
AND	Use AND to find items with all of the specified search terms or phrases. For example: configuration AND Applications Portal — Returns all items with configuration and Applications Portal.
OR	Use OR to find items one or more of the specified search terms or phrases.
NOT	Use NOT to exclude a search term or phrase. For example: people NOT PeopleTools* — Returns all items with terms such as people or PeopleSoft and so on, but excludes those with PeopleTools.

Some search tips and examples are available on the Search Tips page. To access the Search Tips page, click Search Tips from either the Search page or the Saved Searches Detail page.