Set Up and Perform a Freeform Search

Main Search bar in Project > Freeform

Once data is available in the Project, you can use this search to supply and run a query without search syntax assistance. You may want to perform a quick term Search, or you may want to supply a long or more complex query when you already know the search syntax and do not need help building the search query.

Note: To successfully search Project Data, you must have Project Data populated with documents associated with a Content or Analytic Index. If not, you will see an error indicating that the minimally required Index does not exist. (Only documents from a Content or Analytic Index can be added to Project Data.)

What You Need to Know

Before you run a Freeform Search, you should be aware of the following:

Your Search syntax is determined by a Project Search Setting. By default, a Project uses Standard for the Project Search Setting, which means that you must use the Standard Search Syntax to form your Searches. See Standard Search Query Syntax for information on how to build Standard syntax queries. You may want to become familiar with this syntax before performing a Search other than a simple term search.

In general, your current view serves as the default Target of your Search, but you can select a different Target.

Freeform uses several search settings that affect your results. See About the Freeform Search Settings for more information.
If your search query turns out to be overly expansive and running it would match more terms than the current allocated memory can accommodate, you will see the error message: Search query [(<query>)] Query Expansion Exceeded Memory Limit of <value>. In this case, please review your search terms and modify your query to be less expansive. In general, it is best to avoid an overly broad use of wildcards.

If your Search query is the equivalent of having a standalone wildcard, the search will generate an error with a message that identifies the first occurrence of the error in a clause:

The provided query has a phrase containing a standalone wildcard, potentially due to characters treated as spaces. Please adjust and rerun the query (In Phrase: <phrase> At position <value>).

This error prevents your query from expanding to more terms than the system can reasonably accommodate based on resources. In general, it is best to avoid an overly broad use of wildcards.

If your search encounters an Out of Memory condition, the search will fail with the error message:

Your search could not be performed due to insufficient memory. Please contact your System Administrator.

In general, if you search for a named Analytic Metadata view (for example, a Custodian view, Group view representing a Folder, or Tag view), you will get an error if the view name you supply does not exist. (Note that Tag view syntax does support the search for any Tag view using the format tag_view::any.) See Use the Standard Syntax for More Advanced Searches for more information.

Set Up and Run a Freeform Search

A Freeform Search involves these steps:

Type or copy and paste your query in the Freeform Search box to define what you want to search. An expanded box supports large queries. See Work in the Freeform Search Box for more information.
Evaluate whether you want to use the default search settings for the query (that is, Include Families, Include Metadata, and Generate Reports. See About the Freeform Search Settings for more information.
Select where you want to Search. See Select a Search Target or Search within Current Results for more information.
Click to run the search against your selected target or current view/results. (The target is shown in the target box.)

Work in the Freeform Search Box

You can type in or copy ad paste a query into the Freeform box.

By default, the box supports a query that fits on one line, but the box expands, as follows, and provides vertical scroll bars as needed:

The box will expand when you click the down arrow that appears on a gray panel resize bar below the Search box (center of screen). You can then type in the expanded box. To collapse the larger box and return to the collapsed box, click the up arrow that appears on a gray panel resize bar below the Search box (center of screen).
If you copy and paste a large query, the box will expand automatically to accommodate the larger query.

Once you start typing in the collapsed or expanded version of the box, note the following:

As you type (or copy in content), color is used to highlight key parts of your query, and the color will update as you add to or adjust the query. For example, each Boolean operator (AND, OR, NOT) in your query will have its own color, all metadata fields will have a color (for example, sent::, and relationship operators such as family_of will have a color. The use of color is designed to help you easily identify portions of the query.
An x appears in the top right corner of the box, enabling you to clear what you have typed.

Note: If you cut and paste a long query excerpt, remember to quote the entire excerpt, since it is likely it will contain words that have special meaning with quoting, such as the words and or not contains, as well as special characters and punctuation such as a colon.

About the Freeform Search Settings

Freeform Search uses settings that affect the results of your search. You must examine the combination of settings to determine what will appear in your results.

You can control the checkbox settings that apply to a Freeform Search from the main search bar. Normally, you can see all of these checkbox settings, but if the size of your browser window is reduced so that you do not see all of the settings, you can click the ellipses ... to see and manage the settings. (Note that the list of settings changes based on your selected search type.) Freeform Search supports the following settings:

Include Families (enabled by default) — Keep this checkbox option enabled if you want to ensure that all available family members of a document Message Attachment Group (MAG) or Document Attachment Group (DAG) are included in the results of the search operation. This includes a selected parent email, parent document, associated attachments, and embedded messages or documents. For example, with this option enabled, a search that returns a parent email in the results also includes that parent's attachments and any associated embedded files. Similarly, if a document attachment appears in the results, its other family members, such as its parent, also appear in the results. Disabling this option causes the results to include just the responsive documents, not the entire family (MAG or DAG).

Include Metadata (enabled by default) — Keep this checkbox option enabled to expand the search of each keyword in a query to include a set of metadata fields as well as content. You can select the Search Fields you want to have searched automatically. See Using the Include Metadata Option for a list of the default fields searched. When the Include Metadata option is enabled, all individual keywords as well as the keywords in phrases are subject to expansion. You can control the expansion on a per-term basis and limit a given clause keyword to content only by specifying content:: followed by the keyword, or content:: followed by a group of keywords separated by the appropriate Boolean (for example, content::memo or content::(brokerage OR memo). Note that for emails, a content:: search applies to both the email subject and the email body. Disable this option if you want to limit the entire search query to content only (for example, if you are specifying language-specific terms, since Language Detection applies to content only).

Generate Reports (disabled by default) — By default, the search report information is not generated when you run the Search, only when you select the Reports tab of the results. You can select this check box option if you want to have reports generated at the time of the Search instead of waiting until the Reports tab is selected.

Note: The setting to expand synonyms, used by Advanced Search and Bulk Search, does not apply to this search type. Use Advanced Search or Bulk Search if you want to include synonyms in the results.

Select a Search Target or Search within Current Results

After you enter a Project, you can use the Navigation Tree to move to an available view based on your permissions, such as Project Data. In general, your current view serves as your default target and is shown in the target box. (If you do not have a view selected, Project Data is the default target.) If you do not want to use the current view as your search target, change to the view you want before performing the search, or use the main search bar to select a different target before you run the search. For example, you may want to search the entire Project Data, search within a current set of search results, or search the data associated with a given Custodian or a Folder you created to contain documents of interest.

To select where to search for a given view, you can use the Select Target split button from the main search bar to pick one of the following:

Choose Select Target... if you want to launch a popup that enables you to select from a list of available targets, such as Project Data, a Custodian, a MediaID, a Batch, a Folder, Tag view, a search result, or a Workflow step. The list depends on your permissions. For example, if you have the appropriate Data Set permissions, you can use a Data Set under Imports as a search target. When you make your selection, click OK. (As an alternative, you can double-click a target, which selects the target and closes the dialog.You will see your selection in the box.
Use the down arrow shown in the button to choose Current Results if you want to search within a current set of search results. When you select this option, the target box changes to show the current results (with the query and its associated target) and enables you to enter a query as a Freeform Search. For example, if you search for the term legal in Custodian Bob, you can click Current Results and type a query such as court and then search the results view, (legal) in Bob, instead of searching the Custodian Bob view again. This option is not available for non-result views.

You can also select another primary Digital Reef search method: