Refining Your Search
Refine your search results with some of the following techniques:
- Use Operators in Your Search
- Use Exact Search
- Search in a Specific Place
- Mind your Spelling
- Include Versions to Knowledge Base Article Searches
- Refine Your Search Results
Word variations will return more results as it will show all documents and folders that include any, all, or none of the words entered in the search field if the words OR, AND are used, respectively:
- Installed OR install OR installing BlackBerry Enterprise Server
- BlackBerry Enterprise Server Send AND Receive
Boolean operators (AND, OR ) let you precisely define the relationship between the search criteria in your query. Similarly, AND finds items that contain all of the specified terms, and OR finds items that contain either or all of the specified terms.
Tip: You can omit the AND Boolean operator in the search field because the search engine is designed to include AND by default when searching with two or more words. Also, remember to avoid including the uppercase OR or AND in your search terms unless you intend to use a Boolean search. If those words are a part of a phrase, enclosing your phrase with double quotation marks may return better search results (e.g. "copy and paste").
Other operators and the associated functions:
Operator |
Function |
Example |
"" |
"BlackBerry Enterprise Server" |
|
+ |
Must include the search term after the operator (please note that the term(s) follows the operator without a space in between) |
"BlackBerry Enterprise Server" +4.0 |
-- |
Excludes the search term(s) after the operator (please note that the term(s) follows the operator without a space in between) |
"BlackBerry Enterprise Server" --"Microsoft Exchange" |
* |
Wildcard - includes any characters in place of the operator after the search term. |
Black* |
Special characters including the underscore _, perecent sign %, comma , or parentheses ( ) will be ignored.
Surrounding exact phrases with quotation marks such as error messages or product names may help you narrow the search results. For example, submitting a search for "BlackBerry Enterprise Server" will only return documents containing this exact phrase. You can still add keywords outside the quoted phrase to help focus your search (e.g. "java.lang.String not found" error).
Tip: Treat words connected by an underscore as one word (e.g. log_3234), but avoid typing phrases within quotation marks unless you know the exact phrase because you might have very limited or unexpected results returned. Furthermore, be careful not to wrap the quotation marks around a long search phrase, such as "BlackBerry Enterprise Server v4.0 Service Pack" because you may see little or no search results.
If you still see too many documents for your specific keywords, refine your search further by focusing on some specifics:
- Select which section(s) you want to search in from the drop-down menus in the Advanced Search area, or
- Click on the Environment and/or Versions that pertain to your search in the Focus Your Results area after your search.
For example, if you choose BlackBerry Enterprise Server and Product Documentation, you will only see product documentation (such as user guides) pertaining to BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
Tip: If you choose not to select a section, the default is set to search all of the BlackBerry Technical Solution Center.
While you should remember your spelling and spaces, you do not need to worry about proper capitalization; the search engine is designed to treat BlackBerry and blackberry as the same word but BlackBerry and black berry as being different.
Add version numbers or letters to product names when you see too many search results.
Tip: Be careful of including version numbers because being too specific may bring little or no results. That is, if you search for BlackBerry Enterprise Server 4.0.3, you may exclude information on BlackBerry Enterprise Server 4.0 that could be relevant. Similarly, if you search for 7100g instead of 7100, you may miss documentation common to the BlackBerry 7100 series devices.
Depending on the generated results, the following area in the Search Results area can help refine your search further:
- For search resulting in 10 or more documents, you can use the Search Within area to perform another search within these results.
For example, if your first search term is BlackBerry Enterprise Server and the search returns too many results, entering Lotus Domino in the Search Within area will return documents relating only to BlackBerry Enterprise Server and Lotus Domino. - You can also use the side boxes to refine your results further which may include:
- Focus Your Results options, such as Activities, Symptoms, and Versions
- Alternative search suggestions
If few or no documents are found, suggestions for similar searches or closest matches may appear as well.
See Also :