Search Help

The Knowledge Base search serves results from KB documents, Proven Practices and Documentation.

The following search techniques can be used when conducting a Knowledge Base search and a site wide search, which is located in the top right corner of every page.

 

Expansion and Stemming

The Knowledge Base search does expand on words in your search, for example it will expand a search for install to include words such as installation, installs, installing. The Knowledge Base search is also ready to expand on acronyms such as DST, CRN, MSAS.

• Sample Search

Capitalization

Knowledge Base searches are not case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will be understood as lowercase.

Phrase Searches

Sometimes you'll only want results that include an exact phrase. In this case, simply put quotation marks around your search terms.

Number range

Just search for two numbers separated by two periods, with no spaces, into the search box along with your search terms to return a number range. For example a search for 1016422..1017000 returns all the KB documents in that range.

• Sample Search

+ Search

The Knowledge Base search ignores common words and characters such as "where" and "how" as well as certain single digits and single letters because they tend to slow down your search without improving results.

If a common word is essential to getting your results, add a "+" sign in front of it. Be sure to include a space before the plus sign.

• Sample Search

- Search

If your search term has more than one meaning and you want to focus your search, use the minus sign in front of the words related to the meaning that you want to avoid.

• Sample Search

OR Search

To find pages that include either of two search terms, add an uppercase OR between your search terms. For example, a search for dpr-err-2058 8.1 OR 8.2 returns all the KB documents on that error message where the text 8.1 or 8.2 appears as well.

• Sample Search

AND Search

By default, the Knowledge Base search only returns pages that include all of your search terms so there is no need to include AND between terms. To restrict a search further, just add more terms. Keep in mind that the order in which the terms are typed will affect the search results. Try the two searches below and take note of the different results. Sample search 1 is for report template email . Sample search 2 is for email report template.

• Sample Search 1
• Sample Search 2

filetype Search

Add filetype:extension to your search to limit your results further. For example a search for test filetype:pdf only returns Acrobat documents with the word test.

• Sample Search

 

More Tips To find a KB document by its number, do not include the document version number in your search (sample search for KB#1010601). Documents are frequently updated and version numbers are always changing. You can add the Knowledge Base search to you Internet Explorer toolbar using the Enterprise edition of the Google toolbar. Use the KB Search home links on the search results page to return to the search page. Using this link will keep your search query. If you use your browser's back button, your search query is lost. Remember to check the Related Searches section of the search results page. This list is generated by Google and is based on the search results. When searching libraries that have PDFs, such as Documentation and Proven Practices, use the Text Version link to see a hit-highlighted version of the document. Because the first page of any book is usually just a title in the middle of the page, you may have to scroll down to see the text. When a new product is released there may not be a lot of KB documents available. Try searching Documentation and as well as KB documents as official Cognos Documentation is released with the product.