Can't we use = in the global search?

Community Alums · ‎11-20-2017

Hi folks, we have some CIs with '=' in the name. We can't find it using the global search unless we remove the '=' character. Is there anyway we can enable the global search to accept '=' character or is it the platform limited capability? Thanks!!

gauravchoudhury · ‎11-20-2017

Hi Anna,

I referred to some documents and I believe the reason this has been a problem for you is probably because Zing offers users several search interfaces and search operators to conduct text searches. The '=' is considered as a search operator that is used to search terms from global text searches.

However, wildcard characters allow searching for patterns and variations. The system supports both single-character and multiple-character wildcards.

Note: Wildcard text searches are only effective with multiple character words. A wildcard within a sequence of pictogram characters returns too many options for an efficient search. Wildcards are best used with letter-based words.

To perform a single-character wildcard search, use the percent sign (%) character. This wildcard finds words that contain any one character in place the percent-sign-character. For example, to find words such as text or test, search for: te%t

To perform a multiple-character wildcard search, use the asterisk (*) character. This wildcard finds words that contain zero or more characters in place of the asterisk-character. For example, to find words such as planned or placed, search for: pl*d

Zing text search is:

an index split into multiple database shards for parallel querying
created entirely with ServiceNow code
implemented purely within the relational model
yields fast results with search engine logic
provides search results with an emphasis on relevancy scoring
- frequency points
- proximity points
- field-level scoring (such as title, metadata, and short description)
provides search suggestions
- Type-ahead search suggestions
- Did you mean: global search suggestions

Administrators and users with the ts_admin role can configure:

match relevance
field weights for each table
global stop words
stop words for each index
synonym dictionaries for each table
tables with attachment indexing

By default, the system uses the Zing text indexing and search engine to search record data.

Features of Zing text indexing and search engineEnable and configure Zing text indexing and search engine features.
Available search optionsZing offers users several search interfaces and search operators to conduct text searches.
Zing generates search results in four phasesGenerate search results by dividing documents among shards, searching shard documents, scoring shard documents, and merging scores into an index.
Zing filters search results with access controlsFilter search results to only display records the user can access.
Zing computes document scores using three componentsThe Zing search engine computes document scores based on the frequency, sequence, and weight of search terms in the document.
Zing indexes wordsIndex documents by dividing them into words. Depending on the languages your instance supports, a word may be a single character such as a Chinese or Japanese pictogram or a sequence of characters separated by spaces such as with Latin, Arabic, and Pinyin languages.
Zing can include attachments in search resultsExpand search results to include attachments from indexed tables.
Zing removes stop words from queriesRemove common words from search queries that do not produce meaningful results.
Zing matches derived words with stemmingConvert any multiple-character search keyword to its stem form to find derived versions of the word.
Zing can expand search results with synonymsExpand search results to include additional search terms.
Installed with ZingSeveral types of components are installed with Zing.

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Allen5 · ‎02-19-2018

May I use this topic to raise a question about new Dynamic Global Search ?

According to our customer, wildcard seems necessary (mandatory) now to search for part of Incident number.

According to them, before migration to Jakarta, when typing last 5 number (for example) of an incident, search result was displaying all incident ending by (or including) these numbers.

Now, it seems that they need to use wildcard * in front of numbers ? I thought there was a property to modify this behavior (kind of "automatical wildcards"). Am I wrong ? I've search on documentation site, found a lot of properties to manage preferences, but I don't find a preference for this point.

Thanks in advance,

Arnaud

Community Alums · ‎06-15-2023

Hello,

Did you ever figure this out by chance? We have the same question.

atherakhtar · ‎02-19-2018

Hi,

Zing search does not support special character search if searching partially

For example if there is a word in the short description called as NSC200.43 and you want to search it in global search as 200.43 it will not return you any result.

However if you search for the full term you will find that it gives you the result.

Also if a wildcard is used in global search like *200.43 it will return you the correct results.

This could be a bug in SNOW

Thanks,

Ather

Allen5 · ‎02-19-2018

Hi,

Thanks for your answer. What do you mean about special character ?
I'm not talking about short description, but incident number for example.

Instead of typing INC00012345, users would like to type 12345. Historicaly, it was working apparently. Now, not anymore. My dev instance is already in Jakarta so I can't confirm it... but I trust users 😉

Thank you,

Arnaud