Enabling full-text search capabilities in your application

BMC Helix Platform provides the capability to enable full-text search (FTS) in an application.

Digital service applications that are developed by using the BMC Helix Platform can enable full-text search (FTS) to enhance search results in the application. FTS involves indexing before searching so that when a user performs a search, only the index is searched instead of the entire text. For more information about the benefits of FTS and file types that can be searched in FTS, see Search-capabilities-for-custom-applications.

The process of using the full-text search (FTS) in an application includes the following stages:

• Enabling-full-text-search-in-fields 
• Configuring-full-text-search-to-refine-the-search-results
  
  

Process of enabling and configuring FTS in an application

The following image explains the steps steps that the application business analyst and administrator perform:

Benefits of enabling FTS in an application

Enabling FTS in an application has the following benefits that are not present in a standard database search:

• Recognizes stem words
  FTS can identify stem words and can return the results accordingly. For example, when you search for fire, the search results will include words such as firewall, backfire, firefighter, firecracker, and so on. 
• Weighs results
  FTS can weigh words according to their relevancy depending on where they appear—in a title, a keyword, or the text that is being searched. Results that match the title can be weighted as more relevant and can be displayed among the top search results. 

Where to go from here

Enabling-full-text-search-in-fields

Configuring-full-text-search-to-refine-the-search-results