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How to refine your search
How to refine your search

If you're getting too many or too few search results then try these more advanced features to help find what you're looking for.

Chinmayee avatar
Written by Chinmayee
Updated over a week ago

In this article:

When a user searches in LawVu, they're effectively searching across their own content in LawVu. Search results will not be returned for data they don't have permission to access.

The global search function works in two different ways - Basic search and File content search. The basic search will find values entered in the search field against matter, contract, and file names.

File content search, along with the above-mentioned results, will also search for contents of files, emails and their attachments, and conversations. To read more about File content search, check this article


What's new in Search šŸ”

  • Open the matter or contract in the current tab or in a new one to maintain your search context. Additionally, you can copy a link to the matter or contract, so you can share it with other people as needed.

  • The search results now provide more detailed information, including the current state of a matter, the assigned matter owner and manager, the contract owner, and the lifecycle stage of the contract.

  • Sort your search results by Oldest, Most Recent, or Relevance.

  • New File Type facet, so you can filter based on file type (ie. PDFs only).

  • Display new icons to identify the document type in the search result.

  • Global Search results include a count so you can see how many results match the term you are using in each category. That means you can go straight to the place that has the information you are looking for, in less time and fewer clicks.


How LawVu's standard search works

Our standard way of searching is using something called a 'Partial Search'. This means that we search for groups of letters rather than whole words. Let's say you search for: lease. Then our search will return any instances where it finds the letters 'lease' together - here are some examples:

  • Lease for 123 any-street

  • Plan for catch and release fishery

But what happens if you search TWO words like this: lease agreement
At this point - LawVu will change its search behavior and look for the words 'lease' OR the word 'agreement'.
The partial search will not work at this time.

Here are some examples of search results:

  • Lease and agreement for property development

  • Lease for 123 any-street

  • Standard Separation agreement

But this result would NOT be returned

  • Plan for catch and release fishery


Handy search tips to help you search smarter šŸ¤“

  • The system searches not only matter/contract titles or file names but also all the details captured in your matter or contract fields.

  • The search functionality is not case sensitive so you donā€™t have to worry about specifying upper or lower case.

  • Non-alphanumeric characters are not recognizable as valid search tokens. For instance, when searching for words or phrases containing non-alphanumeric characters, only the alphanumeric word is identified.

  • If you need to find a specific term, use double quotes. For example, typing ā€œhedge fundā€ will trigger the search for that phrase only. You can also search multiple phrases if need be by adding double quotes for every phrase. For example, ā€œhedge fundā€ and ā€œFrank Gomezā€ will search for both terms in a matter or file.

  • Search suggestions. As soon as you start typing a search term in the search bar, youā€™ll see suggestions from matters, contracts, and matter files. Then select from the list of suggestions.

  • Did you know that you could export your search results? From a list of search results, you can export either a selection, one page, or the entire search set. How handy. Simply click the checkbox above the search results and click the down-arrow icon next to the checkbox to download.

For more information, check this article: Bulk Export from Search Results


Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT)

You can embed operators in a search query to build a rich set of criteria against which matching documents are found. To use Boolean operators, ensure the operators are entered in capital letters.

AND operator

For example, wifi AND luxury will search for results containing both wifi and luxury.

OR operator

For example, wifi OR luxury will search for results containing either wifi or luxury or both.

NOT operator

For example, wifi NOT luxury will search for results that have the wifi term and/or do not have luxury.


Search Weighting

Search results are scored based on "relevance" and ordered from highest to lowest score.
Scores are based on the similarity of the item with the search terms, the more similar the terms and number of matches, the higher the score.

While the LawVu search function does search the body of your files, it is heavily weighted in favor of the name of the matter or contract. The more exact you have the title of a matter or contract, the higher up the results it will feature.

The following weighting schema is in force:

Matters

- Name + 5, Tags +1

Contracts

- Name + 5

Files

- FileName + 5, Tags +1

Message

- Subject + 5

Article

- Title + 5, Subtitle + 2

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