Helpdesk Knowledge Base

Searching the Knowledgebase

The knowledgebase contains details of known problems / issues / queries in relation to the desktop software in use at the University. To access the knowledgebase, click on the link below, and then on the search icon (looks like a magnifying glass). Type the required search expression in the Expression or Natural Language dialog box, the different types of search are outlined below.

Search the 'Knowledge Base' here...

Basic search expressions
A query expression is a mixture of words and operators used by the knowledgebase to
search through the knowledge collection.
All of the following query expressions are entered in the Expression box and
search through the KnowledgeBase collection :

• Single words and word lists
• AND, OR and NOT operators
• Wildcard searching
• Other useful searches
By default, search expressions are not case sensitive.

Single words and word lists
You can type single-words in the Expression box, for example: Print. Knowledgebase searches for the word you type and its stemmed variations, in this case print, prints, printed, printer, and printing.In a similar manner, you can type word lists: print, paper, cartridge. Knowledgebase searches through your collection and retrieves calls that contain the words, print, paper or cartridge or their stemmed variations.

Calls that include a larger number of the words in the search expression are given a higher score on the results window and appear nearer the top.

AND, OR and NOT operators
Knowledgebase provides the Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT. Searches involving these operators should be typed in in the Expression box.
NOT Excludes problems or calls that contain the following word. For example, to search for problems or calls that are not relevant to phones, type:

NOT phones

AND The AND operator searches for problems or calls that contain all of the
words you specify. For example, to search for all problems or calls that
are relevant to phones and chargers, type:

phones AND chargers

which retrieves all problems or calls that contain both search words.

Search Expressions
The operators are in UPPER CASE in the examples above, to highlight their use. In Knowledgebase, you can type the operators in either upper or lower case. The precedence order of the operators is NOT, AND, OR. You can also use brackets (and) to indicate precedence. For example, if you type:

NOT (PC OR LAN) AND printer

Knowledgebase finds all problems or calls that do not refer to PCs or LANs, but do refer to printers.

Wildcard searching
You can use wildcard characters in searches to represent variable portions of
search strings. The following wildcard characters can be used:

? - specifies one of any alphanumeric character, as in ?an, which finds can, ran, and so on.

* - specifies zero or more of any alphanumeric character, as in har*, which finds hardware, hardly, and so on.
If you use a wildcard search that finds too many matched, a warning dialog box appears. Type a new, more precise search expression in the Search Expression dialog box, then click Search Again.

Natural language searching
This advanced search option enables you to type free text to search for calls or
problems that have similar content to the free text. For example, you can type into
the Natural Language box:

No dialling tone when user tries to make a call from his mobile phone.

Knowledgebase parses the query to remove words such as the, and and, and performs
similarity and synonym searching on the remaining words. Problems or calls containing the words crash, crashing, crashes are found, as are problems or callscontaining the words missing and gone. The score indicates how well each problem or call matches this query. Problems or calls with a high score contain more components of the search expression than those with a low score.

Calls that include a larger number of the words in the search expression are given a higher score on the results window and appear nearer the top.

SEE ALSO FAQS ....