Feature Transition: Full Text Search Upgrade
Applicable Adept Release: WINTER '25 (11.4.0)
Intended Audience: FTS Search Users, Administrators, Organization Leaders
Last Update:
Executive Summary
Adept’s Full Text Search (FTS) engine has been upgraded. The result: faster, more accurate searches across all applications—Desktop, Web, Mobile, and Task Pane. This enhancement ensures users can quickly locate critical information, improving productivity and confidence in search results.
Why This Matters
This upgrade ensures users can quickly and confidently locate the information they need. Re-indexing is essential to take full advantage of these improvements, ensuring complete and accurate results that support better decision-making and compliance. Without re-indexing, organizations risk incomplete or inaccurate searches.
Key Benefits
Faster, more precise searches—reducing time spent locating critical documents.
Improved punctuation handling for greater accuracy—giving power users more control in advanced searches.
Future-ready foundation for technical content, multilingual data, and scalable document libraries.
Administrative Actions
To complete the transition to the new Full Text Search (FTS) capabilities, two actions are essential: re-indexing document text and updating saved searches. Re-indexing applies the new search logic to metadata, while updating saved searches ensures queries work with improved punctuation and character handling. Together, these steps deliver accurate results and unlock the full benefits of the upgrade.
Activity 1: Re-index Existing Content
Re-indexing can be time-consuming for customers with large libraries, especially those with many documents or complex content. To minimize disruption:
Schedule bulk refreshes during off-peak hours or maintenance windows.
Prioritize critical libraries first, then work through less frequently accessed areas.
Consider staggered indexing if resources are limited.
Re-indexing Options
Option | How to Perform | When to Use |
|---|---|---|
Bulk Index Refresh | In the Library Administration dialog, right-click and select Refresh Full Text Search Indices. | For entire libraries. |
Targeted Document Refresh | Use Clear Extracted Data, then Refresh Extracted Data from the same dialog. | For specific batches of critical documents. |
Ongoing Extraction | Happens automatically during Check-In of new or edited documents. | For new or modified documents only. |
Activity 2: Review and Update Saved Searches
The upgrade changes how punctuation and special characters are handled in Full Text Search. Saved searches that rely on older syntax may fail or return unexpected results. A review of all saved searches with FTS criteria is strongly recommended.
How to Approach This
Synergis provides an SQL script that identifies:
The name of each saved search.
The FTS criteria used.
The owner of the saved search.
Once you have the script results:
Work with Synergis to determine which saved searches may require updates.
Decide whether to:
Create new saved searches to replace problematic ones, or
Update existing searches by editing FTS criteria directly in the database (with Synergis assistance).
What to Look For
Handling of special characters is the most common issue.
A cursory review of all FTS criteria is recommended to ensure accurate results under the new search logic.
Important: No automated migration tool exists—these updates require manual review and action.
Search Behavior Changes
The upgraded Full Text Search (FTS) engine introduces new handling for punctuation and special characters, improving accuracy and flexibility—especially for advanced searches. Users performing complex queries should review these changes carefully.
Expanded support for Special Characters
Previously, only a small set of special characters was preserved during indexing, leaving many others unsearchable. That’s no longer the case—all characters can now be searched, though some will require proper escaping.
Punctuation Ignored in Standard Searches
Searching for blue will match blue., (blue), or blue,.
Smart quotes Normalized
Some applications automatically insert curly quotes (“ ” ‘ ’), and users may not realize it. Normalizing these to straight quotes (" and ') during indexing and searching prevents incomplete results and ensures searches return all relevant matches.
Example: Measurements like 5’ 10” and 5' 10" will be indexed consistently.
Unicode Characters Require Exact Match
Accented letters (e.g., é) are searchable, but exact characters must be entered.
Example: Searching for resume will not return résumé.
Escaping Special Characters
Characters with special meaning in the FTS engine must be preceded by a backslash \ to treat them as literal characters.
(Think of the backslash as a “magic wand” that turns a character with special meaning into a literal character.)
Characters Requiring Escaping |
|
|---|---|
Common Characters That Don’t Require Escaping |
|
Example: Searching for Proposal(draft).pdf would be entered as Proposal\(draft\).pdf.
Other Tips
Stop Words
Did you know that the FTS engine ignores very common words (stop words) to improve performance? Generally, there’s no need to include them in your search criteria. Searches containing only stop words return no results.
Complete Stop Word List
a, an, and, are, as, at, be, but, by, for, if, in, into, is, it, no, not, of, on, or, such, that, the, their, then, there, these, they, this, to, was, will, with
Summary
This upgrade modernizes Adept’s search capabilities, improves accuracy, and supports technical content. To take full advantage:
Re-index all existing content.
Review and update saved searches for compatibility.
Communicate changes in search behavior to users, especially those performing advanced queries.