Google™-like default search

In Next® you can find documents in numerous ways. You can have search forms that combines exact meta data look up, with Google™-like free format search, and even full-text search through the content of documents and their attachments.

For historical reasons (meaning that we really can't come up with any good excuses), the default search you find at the very top of every document and task list, has always been the most simple one. Searching in only the description of the listed documents or tasks.

But no longer. As of now, the default search is our Google™-like free format search, where Next® looks into everything: all the meta data, the comments, and the content of your documents. And still - at the speed of light. 


Now Next® will look for 'invoice' AND '384330' in all the information we have. Not only the description.


A long overdue enhancement that makes finding documents even easier. And remember, if you are getting too many hits - use the search form to provide limiting criteria. 


Even more clever  

At the same time as we change the default search to look into in all the data we have on your documents, we also make it easier to search in the actual document content - or the full-text as we call it. 

Simply toggle between Include full-text and Exclude full-text, to get the result that suits you the best.  


When you include full-text Next® presents the found documents with a small snippet of the text found.


And remember, when you do full text search in Next® you'll find whatever you are looking for, even in attachments!


Find whatever you are looking for, even in attachments!


How to use full-text search

Full-text search is a bit of a beast. When you do full-text search you ask  Next® to find whatever makes sense from a linguistic  sense - not a pattern matching scheme. Type in the relevant words, and leave it to  Next® to make sense of it.  Next® will normalize your words and include synonyms (if enabled) - that is if you write advocates, then  Next® will look for advocate, lawyer , and solicitor - but ignore the fact that you used plural form. In the Search module,  Next® will list the hits where multiple of your search words appear, and even rank them higher if they are used together. In all other documents lists your result is always sorted according to one of the columns in the list, and not the full-text search ranking. This means that in these lists, your most relevant hit may be found on page 2 or even later. To over come that - search for fewer words, and limit you list on other criteria, if you get too many hits.  

 

Future enhancements

With this major upgrade to our default search, the need for other searches will decline. In a soon to come release we will eliminate the separate Search module, and encourage you to use the default search in the All documents view. 

In a soon to come release of  Next®, we will add a Global search at the very top bar of  Next®. Whatever you type in here, will be used to search the entire enterprise archive for documents, folders, and tasks. This enterprise search will retire the dedicated Search tap in the left hand menu. 

For the techies

Full-text search looks for any of the terms (words) you enter - prioritizing when all the terms you enter are found in the text close to each other. As our lists always enforces a sorting (typically on a date) you risk finding the documents where only one of the words appear at the top of the list. 

In a later release, we will change this behavior. 

At the time of writing, a bug prevents Next® from finding you documents based on comments. This bug will be resolved soon. 

Additional information

Please refer to the online product guide for additional information on this feature, once it is released.

Commercial terms and conditions

This new feature is available at no additional cost, to users with an active service plan. Any consultancy assistance will be invoiced.

Disclaimer

Despite our best efforts, we may be forced to change both content and expected delivery of future product updates without notice.


Details

Title:

Google™-like default search

Type:

Enhanced feature

Status:

In planning

Expected release:

November 2021

Affected products:

Next® Contracts
Next® Emails

Next® Enterprise Archive
Next® ExCustody
Next® Go

Next® Invoices
Next® Mailroom
Next® Processes

Audience:

End user

Classification:

Public

Responsible product manager:

Kim Hellum

Updated:

3.11.2021

By:

Kim Hellum