Overview
This article explains how to enable configure Global Search and covers:
- Data Security Considerations
- Indexing Options
- Enabling Global Search
For general use as well as 'tips and tricks' for getting the most out of Global Search, see this article: Using Global Search
Data Security Considerations
Security Access Rules
Global Search was developed with data security in mind. As expected the search results respect the security rules for each Role in your tenant. Accordingly, Global Search results for different users will be limited by the Security Access Rules in place. It is important to note that when users navigate to a search result they will be taken to the 'Default View' for the corresponding Record or Report.
In situations where UI and/or Navigation controls have been inappropriately implemented as a surrogate for security rules, users may see information that is normally hidden from them. Therefore BEFORE enabling Global Search it is essential that you understand how your Security Rules are set up, and whether or not UI and/or Navigation controls are used to hide sensitive data.
In most cases you can enable Global Search full indexing with confidence, however IF there is any doubt about the potential use of UI and/or Navigation controls to hide sensitive data then it is recommended that Global Search is ONLY enabled for entities that do NOT contain sensitive data until appropriate security rules are implemented.
Document Encryption
Global Search can also be used to index your documents. By design Global Search makes no attempt to index or display the content of documents that are: encrypted, pass-word protected, or that use proprietary encoding (such as .doc). However, depending on Security Access Rules, these documents may still show up in search results if a search expression matches the document meta-data. In such cases a preview of the document will not be available.
Indexing Options
In most cases you can confidently enable Global Search with full indexing. However, if there are concerns about inappropriate use of UI and/or Navigation controls to hide sensitive data then you should ensure you understand your entity model and the expected behaviour of indexing.
When setting up indexing it is helpful to think of the check-boxes against each Object in your entity model as an explicit include (rather than an explicit exclude). For example if you have the following structure:
[✔] Person (Abstract)
[✔] Contractor (Derived from Person)
[✔] Employee (Derived from Person)
[✔] Manager (Derived from Employee)
Unless Security Access Rules for the Objects specify 'Exact Type' the following behaviour is expected:
- Deselecting 'Manager' will NOT exclude managers from the search results
Manager is implicitly included as an 'Employee' - Deselecting 'Person' & 'Manager' will NOT exclude managers from the search results
Manager is implicitly included as an 'Employee' - Deselecting 'Person' & 'Contractor' WILL exclude contractors from the search results
Employees and managers are explicitly included
Enabling Global Search
✔ BEFORE enabling Global Search: please read Data Security Considerations AND Indexing Options
Global Search is disabled by default and the icon that normally appears in the header is hidden until it is enabled. To enable Global Search:
- navigate to Administration > Settings (on left) > Global Search Settings
- check the box: 'Indexing enabled'
- optional - change indexing options (see tips below)
- press 'Save' (indexing may take a few minutes to complete)
Note:
Global Search discards the current index and creates a new index whenever indexing options are saved.
Tip:
To quickly deselect all Objects (or Types, Documents):
- select the radio button 'No objects'
- press 'Save' (on saving the corresponding entities will be deselected and the index will be rebuilt)