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Search screen

This screen can be used to specify what you would like to look for, and what data you would like to consider in your search. Not all the controls listed here may be present in the search screen; this depends on how your system administrator has configured empower. The following controls can be used for entering your search parameters:

Find information on

This text box is where you can type in your query, using natural language words and phrases. You may, if you wish, type in a complete sentence. The search will look for these words, and will return a list of the most relevant items.
You can put as many other words as you like into the box; you should always enter as many words as you can (that are relevant to your interests) into this box.
Additional techniques that can be used for entering queries: Please refer to the user manual for further details of these query techniques.

Top Terms

You can refine your search by using key words (known as Top Terms) that appear after you have done your first search. These are frequently-occurring words that have been found in the documents returned by the first search. Top Terms are usually displayed in a list (presented in their stemmed form) with check boxes adjacent to them. To include each term in the next search (thus making the search more detailed), select the check boxes of terms you feel are most relevant to your interest. This feature will only appear if your administrator has enabled it, and if you have already conducted an initial search.
You can increase the effectiveness of Top Terms by selecting the check boxes alongside each item in the results list; this will focus the words in the Top Terms list only on those documents chosen.

Improve

This is an optional method of refining a query, by selecting specific document items from the first query for inclusion in a secondary query. Check the check boxes against all items you wish to include in a secondary query. An Improve button will appear after the first query; click this button to start the improved query.
You can use the Improve feature in conjunction with the Top Terms feature to produce more powerful queries.
Note that Improve will work even if you have not selected any check boxes. For best results, it is recommended that you select as many documents as you can that you feel may be relevant.

Language selection

You can specify that the query will look only for document items in a particular language (choose the language from the find information in selection list). Muscat empower will work out which documents have a high incidence of words in the chosen language, and will include them in the search. The only documents in other languages that will be matched to the words in the query are those where words occur with initial capital letters.

Limitation by date

You can limit your search to items that were added to the index within a number of days specified by you. In the text box labeled include items modified within the last , type in a number of days to specify how far back the search should look. Any items outside this date range will be ignored.

Sorting options

You can choose how you would like the results of your query to be displayed. The default setting sorts by percentage score (this is determined by the relevance of each item). Relevance is a rating of how well the contents of each document item match the search terms and conditions you have typed in.

Document items which have the same score are then ordered by word proximity - in other words, an item which contains search words close to each other will be ranked more highly than one which contains the same words, but not close to each other.

Alternatively, you could choose to sort by relevance bands and then date, in which case items with the same relevance will be presented in reverse chronological order; in other words, the most recent comes first. (The date used is the date when the item was written.) Also, you can sort by date and then relevance, where items are listed in reverse chronological order, with items written on the same day presented in order of relevance (in other words, the highest percentage score comes first).

Relevance cutoff

You can choose to exclude all items which have a relevance below a level you specify. To do this, you can select from a list of relevance ratings in the excluding results less than % relevant drop-down list.

Category filters

If you wish to perform a more exact match, you should use category filters. These are drop-down selection lists containing different categories of information (these should be defined by your system administrator).

Select the appropriate categories when performing a query - this will restrict the results to those categories.

You will only see this feature in the search screen if your system administrator has enabled it.

Search button

When you have finished setting up your query, click on this button to initiate a search.

Reset button

If you wish to clear the search settings at any time, you may click on this button; this will set the page back to the state it was in when you loaded it, so you can start again.

Thesaurus button

Click on this button if you wish to use a thesaurus to find similar or related words. This will open the thesaurus screen.

Improve button

Click on this button if you wish to use the Improve feature (mentioned above). This button will only appear after you have performed a first search.

Create agent button

Click on this button if you wish to turn the search into a personal agent; this will open the create an agent screen. This button will only appear after you have performed a first search.