This document discusses the importance of investing in enterprise search and provides guidance on how to get started. It outlines that search is more than just technology - it requires focusing on users, content, and context. It recommends selecting key content sources, defining search requirements, and evolving search over time as an ongoing process rather than a one-time project. The document also covers best practices like involving search experts, addressing security considerations, and preparing for future trends in cognitive search.

1. Why You Need to Invest
into Search
and how to Start this Journey?
Agnes Molnar, 2018
Matthew McDermott
Agnes.Molnar@SearchExplained.com
@molnaragnes / @SearchExplained

2. Copyright © 2018 – Spanning Cloud Apps, LLC. All Rights Reserved2
2

3. Introduction – Agnes Molnar
Agnes.Molnar@SearchExplained.com
https://SearchExplained.com
https://Academy.SearchExplained.com

4. Introduction – Agnes Molnar
https://SearchExplained.com/Books

5. WHY?

6. The Plan…

7. The Reality…

8. LAY OF THE LAND

9. Lay of the Land:
Information and application silos
Marketing Sales ProcurementConsulting Research HR / LegalSupportProduction
Content
Silos
Siloed UI
Applications

10. The Reality in Most Cases…

11. The Enterprise Search Promise
RDBMS
(JDBC, ODBC,
SQLNet, DW,
DM)
Applications
(e.g. ERM, CRM,
Help Desk)
Legacy Data
(e.g. ISAM,
VSAM, IMS)
Message Queues
(e.g. TIBCO,
MQ-Series)
DMS
(e.g. M’Soft CMS,
Documentum)
eMail Systems
(e.g. Notes,
Exchange)
Files
(e.g. Word, Excel,
pdf, images, mp3)
Portals
(e.g. WebSphere,
WebLogic)
WWW
(HTML, XML, WML,
JavaScript)
Private Webs
(e.g. news feeds,
Intranets)
Direct
Push
UNSTRUCTUREDSTRUCTURED
REAL--TIME
Enterprise Search
Platform
SITESEARCH
MAILSEARCH
BISEARCH
DMSSEARCH
CORPORATE
SEARCH
ECOMMERCE
SEARCH
…

12. SEARCH IS INCREDIBLE
WHEN DONE WELL

13. Content
Content
Processing
Search
Index
Search UI
“Architectural” View
Query
Processing
Connectors
Analytics & Administration
Content
Enrichment

14. Search is more than the technology
Source: http://searchpatterns.org
Search managers must work
with the whole system

15. A Recipe for Improving Search

19. Food Recipes

25. Content pulled by
search across all sites
(e.g. all actioncards)

27. “The No. 1 thing you can
do to increase relevance
is to attend to your content.”

28. The Paradox
of Content

29. KEEP &
RE-ORGANIZEKEEP &
“FREEZE”
DELETE /
ARCHIVE

30. Selecting Sources
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
ij
k l
mn
o
p
q
ImpactofContent
Onboarding & Cleanup Effort
Content Sources for Onboarding
a R&D projects - reports
b R&D projects - research notebooks
c Historical projects (OCR)
d Prototype data
e Lab notes
f Patent prep library
g CAD drawings
h Testing/Stress Data
i Design Patterns
j Technical Data Sheets
k Expert Profiles
l Regulation Database
m Subscription (OneSource, Lexis)
n Industry database
o Competitor Web Crawling
p Industry patents
q Newswires

35. Search:
User – Context – Content
Content:
Document types, objects, structure, attributes,
metadata
[How to describe the information]
Users:
Information needs, audience types, expertise,
tasks
[Who needs the Information]
Context:
Business models & goals, corporate culture,
resources
[How the information is used]
Context
UsersContent

37. Metadata in Traditional Faceted Search
38
Recall and Relevance
hits on properties.
Properties
Content annotated automatically – concepts,
categories, citations, matters, clients, etc
Navigation Controls
Explore, Discover, Drill-down

39. Search Strategy
Without Strategy
• Low adoption
• Project failures
• Frustration and chaos
• Inefficiency / loss of productivity
• Compliance breaches and penalties
• Errors and misinformed decisions
• Lack of agility / missed
opportunities
• Competitive losses
With Strategy
• Higher project success & adoption
• Better resilience to change
• Higher Productivity & Efficiency
• Lower legal and compliance risk &
cost
• Better decision making
• Higher Agility
• Competitive Advantage

40. Search Team – Involve & Get Involved!
Source: http://searchpatterns.org

41. Define your requirements
Business
goals
Users
Scenarios
& use cases
Application
Lifecycle
Systems to
integrate
User
Experience
Metrics Milestones
Resources Experts

42. Evolution
• Search is a “product”, not a one-time project
Time
v1.0 v2.0 v3.0
Minor updates
1-2 year(s) 1-2 year(s)

43. Avoid the Search Immaturity Cycle
Surveys
Questionnaires
Feedback
The problem must be
the content is not
indexedRFI/RFP
Frustration
Root cause
analysis
Attempt fix
Request feedback
The
Enterprise
Search Cycle

44. Security

45. Security in Enterprise Search
• Goal: to protect Enterprise Search from “security
incidents”
• Security Trimmed Results
• Enterprise Search Security = Content Security
• Enterprise Search != Security Leak

46. What if I cannot find a document?
The document does not exist.
The document does exist - but is not in the search index.
The document does exist, is indexed – but I don’t have permission to
read it.

47. THE NEXT WAVE OF SEARCH

48. TRENDS
51
Technology
Expectations
End-User
Expectations
Consumerization of IT
& Intuitive User Experience
Commoditization of
Search Engines

49. Forrester, June 2017
Forrester: “Keyword search of the past has
evolved into Cognitive Search”

50. Matching IntentContent
Context
Content
Enrichment
UXConnections
Query
Augmentation
Using Cognitive Services

51. Session Recap

52. Resources
• Search Explained
– www.searchexplained.com
• SharePoint Search Query Tool
– http://bit.ly/abQueryTool
• Search Queries Explained
– https://bit.ly/abQueryBook
• My Blog
– http://www.ableblue.com/blog
• SharePoint Search Back to Front
– https://bit.ly/abSearch