Configuring a database for Search 360

To allow Search 360 capabilities such as spelled-like and sounds-like, you need to set up additional indexing of the data that is stored in the database. By default, Search 360 indexes all fields, but you can reduce the size of the index and improve performance by excluding any that are not relevant to your search requirements.

Before you begin

It is useful to understand the types of fields defined in your iBase schema, because this can help you decide what to include in the Search 360 index. You can generate a Database Design Report from the iBase Designer File menu, which shows all the field names and field types associated with Entity and Link records.

Fields with types of 'Selected from Code List', 'Suggested from Code List', or 'Yes/No' are often good candidates for exclusion from the Search 360 index. This is because they contain information from pick lists, which is more suited to standard iBase queries. For example, a Person entity might have fields such as 'gender', 'nationality', or even 'wears glasses'. There is little benefit in running 360 searches on fields of this type.

Similarly, if you are indexing bank accounts, it is inefficient to index different kinds of accounts, such as 'savings' or 'current'. If you are searching documents for information about a bank account, you are more likely to be interested in the specific details of the account rather than what sort of account it is.

Procedure

To initialize the database for Search 360, in iBase Designer:

  1. Select Tools > Search > Search 360 Administration.

  2. In the Search 360 Administration window, turn on Enable Search 360.

    Note: Turning off Enable Search 360 prevents the index service from running.

  3. When Search 360 is enabled for the first time, the Build Index button is available. If you want indexing to occur when the index service next runs, click Build Index. The SQL Server administrator needs to set up the index service. On subsequent occasions, the available option button changes to Rebuild Index. You might not want to rebuild the index every time you make a change to the database, as this can be time-consuming and have an impact on performance. Changes to the database schema, such as adding new fields, require a rebuild of the index.

  4. To build the index you must select at least one iBase record type from the Entities and Links lists. If you select the checkbox at the top level, all record types are automatically included, along with their fields. iBase can index all fields, but this takes longer to build, longer to search, and can return results of little value. You can click to select record types individually, and then click to deselect fields within each record type.

  5. Optional: To include metadata from any Document field types, select Index document metadata. The metadata can provide useful context about the document, such as the author, date created, or title.

  6. Click OK and then close the iBase database. The index service cannot connect to the database while you are logged in.

What to do next

System administrators should use the Index Service Configuration tool to set up the index service and its schedule. Alternatively it is possible to configure the index service manually. During the index service setup, the server name and database name must be correctly specified in the Configure Database dialog. This ensures:

  • the SQL Server Agent job is created in SQL Server.

  • The 360 search field is available to iBase users when they log in to the database.

To exclude specific words from the index, you can connect to SQL Server Management Studio with an account with the required permissions on the iBase SQL Server database. For more information, see this iBase Support article.