Contextual Search -- Limiting search to specified knowledge bases or catalogs?

[onthego]

I've been working with contextual search in Fuji.   I feel like I'm missing something here in that there is no apparent configuration for what knowledge bases or catalogs the search can be limited toward.   It sniffs of "one size fits all" in a release where we now have multiple defined catalogs and knowledge bases.

My use case is having a wizard for the purpose of front ending a software how-to and/or request that allows the user to search for keywords in knowledge base articles and descriptions of catalog items associated with software requests (i.e. the software product catalog).   I need to limit the search toward software alone.

Has anyone else worked with limiting the search boundaries?

[chrishenson · Accepted solution]

Hello Allan,

Just a quick intro, I'm one of the developers from UK Application Development which created Contextual Search.

Limiting the Service Catalog or Knowledge Base is configured in the Search Context.   I'd recommend creating a new search context which uses the Knowledge and Catalog searcher.   Once the context is created a set of Resource Configurations will be available to you.

Expand the catalog resource configuration you'll see the Catalog Name property.   Enter the name of the catalog you wish to limit the search to here.

Expanding the knowledge resource configuration a Condition property is made available to you.   You can restrict the Knowledge base you wish to search there using an encoded query E.g. kb_knowledge_base=ffcdf061ff2121009b20ffffffffffa4 for the 'out of box' HR catalog.

We're looking at providing a standard set of properties for search resources to make configuration more consistent.

Regards,

Chris Henson

[onthego]

Great! I see this: Defining Contextual Searches - ServiceNow Wiki that is already documented.   It now makes sense.  

Some feedback/suggestions:

• Some catalog properties that would make sense (at least for me) to be able to filter on would include class and category within the catalog.
• On the "knowledge and catalog" searcher, it would be good to be able to format knowledge and catalog in separate columns, making each source equally accessible.  
• Ability to set display limits by searcher would be good.   One might want to weight one search result over another.
• Likely in the pipeline, but have the ability to create custom searchers and flexibly select combinations so that contextual search could be used over custom tables.

Thanks for your help.   I really appreciate it.

[chrishenson]

No problem.   Thanks for the feedback.

• We're looking at ways to improve the current search resources.   More fine grained filtering of catalog results is one of the things we'll look at
• Separate display of each resource is something we're looking at
• Adding a weighting factor per resource is certainly an interesting idea.   I'll put it to the team
• You'd be correct in saying it's in the pipeline

As with all these things, I can't confirm if or when any features will be released.

[Niclas]

Hey Chris,

that's information was really helpful! However is possible to reference the current fields in the condition property? For example: Incident and Knowledge Form have an field "Configuration Item" and the only knowledge articles who are linked to the same CI as the Incident shall be displayed.

I also recognized that it is not possible to call a Script Include to return some encoded queries. That would be nice to have too