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Searching

The Search page is the primary way to find records in Cortex Archive. You can run a quick keyword search, build a filtered search with multiple criteria, and save searches to reuse later.

Searches created here are saved to your home page for quick access going forward. If you are looking to browse saved searches that existed inside your source system (Cherwell, Neurons, etc.) before you migrated to Cortex, see Saved Searches.

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By default, Search shows every business object you have permission to see, the same way it did in your source system. A Cortex admin can override this and limit the list to a specific whitelist or blacklist of objects instead. Your admin may also add a custom message to this page with notes or instructions - if you see one at the top of the page, it's worth reading before reaching out with basic questions.

At the top of the Search page you will find a business object dropdown, a text input, and a Search button.

Search the Archives

  • Business object dropdown - selects which table to search. Defaults to Incident. If your system renamed the Incident object (for example, "Incident & Service Request"), it will reflect that name here. The first entry in the list is Any Table, which searches across every table at once (see Searching Every Table at Once).
  • Text input - enter a keyword or phrase for a full-text search, or leave it blank if you are using filters only.
  • Also search related objects - when checked, Cortex will also search related supporting objects (such as Incident Specifics) for the search term.
  • Add filter - opens the filter builder to add specific search criteria (see below).

If full-text search is not available for the selected business object, the text box switches to Quick Search (Fallback Mode) and shows the message "Full-text search isn't available. Quick Search is using Fallback Mode (Slow), which may take longer."

Fallback Mode searches by scanning the object's text columns for your term instead of using the full-text index. Results can be broader than a keyword search, and the search can take noticeably longer on large archives - but searching keeps working when full-text search is unavailable.

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A Cortex admin can also force Fallback Mode for a data source, for cases where full-text search appears to be available but returns incorrect results. See Data Sources.

In Fallback Mode your term is matched as literal text, so characters that would otherwise act as wildcards are searched for exactly as typed. A search for 50% looks for the text 50% rather than for anything beginning with 50, and _ and [ are treated the same way. Percentage values, part numbers containing an underscore and bracketed references can therefore be searched for without escaping them.

Business Object Types​

When selecting a business object, it helps to understand how they are organized:

  • Major business objects - the main tables you are likely to search, such as Incident, Change, Problem, and Knowledge Article.
  • Supporting business objects - objects that belong to a major object, such as Journals (notes on an incident) and Tasks.
  • Lookup tables - the tables that populate dropdown values on forms.

In most cases you will be searching for major business objects. Supporting objects are useful if you need to pull up a specific task or journal by its ID.

To run a quick keyword search:

  1. Select the business object you want to search from the dropdown.
  2. Type your search term in the text box.
  3. Click Search.

Results will appear in a grid below. Double-click any row to open the record.

Pressing Enter in the text box runs the search straight away, using the term currently in the box.

How Results Are Ordered​

When you search with a term and have not sorted the results by clicking a column header, Cortex orders the matches by how well they match your term - the best matches come first, instead of in whatever order the archive happens to return them.

  • Sorting always wins. Click any column header and the results are ordered by that column, exactly as before. Remove the sort and the default relevance ordering returns.
  • Nothing is left out. Relevance changes the order of the results, not which records come back. Match Any Keyword still returns every record containing any of your words.
  • Common words do not distort the ranking. Searching for paper printer and still returns a row that only contains and, but that row ranks below the rows that genuinely match paper or printer.
  • Where the archive supports full-text search, the database's own relevance score is used. Where it does not - and for Fallback Mode - Cortex scores each row by how many of the searched columns matched, so the most-matching rows come first.

This ordering applies to searches Cortex runs itself. Cherwell archive searches run through their own search path and keep the ordering they already produce.

Searching Every Table at Once​

Sometimes you know a value - a ticket number, a name, an email address - but not which table holds it. The Any Table search runs a quick search across every table in the data source at once, so you do not have to guess whether a record lives in Incident, Problem, or Change.

Select Any Table from the table selector on the Search or Browse page to open the Search all tables page, then:

  1. Enter your term in Quick Search.
  2. Choose how Cortex should match the term in Match.
  3. Click Search all tables.

Results are grouped into one block per table, and each block appears as soon as that table's search finishes rather than all at the end - so you can start reading the first results while the rest are still running. A block shows the table name, a short preview of the matching rows, and how many matches that table holds. Use More on a block to page through that one table's results, and double-click any row to open the record.

Tick Hide tables with no matches to list only the tables that found something. If your data source classifies its tables into groups - for example Major, Supporting, and Lookup business objects in Cherwell - the Tables to search row lets you choose which groups are included. Only the major objects are selected to begin with, so the search does not start by scanning every table.

A few things worth knowing:

  • Only tables that support quick search are searched. A table that cannot be searched explains why instead of appearing to have no matches.
  • If a table fails, the rest of the search continues and the failure is reported in that table's block.
  • Any licence-based record limit applies to each table separately, so the match counts shown can be higher than the number of rows you can page through.
  • The Any Table search is deliberately quick-search only. To filter on specific field values, open an individual table and use the search builder there.

For Cherwell data sources, each block is titled with the business object's display name - the alias your users see, such as Config - Printer - rather than the internal table name.

Adding Filters​

For more targeted searches, use filters to narrow results by specific field values.

  1. Click Add filter.
  2. Select the field you want to filter on (for example, Incident Status).
  3. Choose an operator (for example, is not).
  4. Select or enter the value (for example, Closed).
  5. Click Search.

You can stack multiple filters. For example, to find all incidents that are neither closed nor resolved:

  • Filter 1: Incident Status is not Closed
  • Filter 2: Incident Status is not Resolved

Results will show everything that matches both conditions - such as New, In Progress, Pending, and Assigned.

Filtering by a Date Range​

For date and date-time fields, the operator list includes Between. Use it to search a period instead of a single date:

  1. Click Add filter.
  2. Select a date field.
  3. Choose Between.
  4. Enter the start and the end of the range.

Between matches records where the field falls on or after the start value and on or before the end value - the same result as combining "greater than or equal" and "less than or equal" conditions. It is offered for date fields wherever the archive supports those two comparisons.

Because date ranges are part of the shared search model, they work anywhere search criteria are built: ad hoc searches, saved searches, filters passed to embeds, and Cortex's MCP search tools.

Viewing a Record​

Double-click any row in the search results to open the full record. From here you can:

  • See all field values on the form
  • View related records in the relationship grids at the bottom of the screen (such as journals, tasks, approvals, and CIs)
  • Double-click related records to open them
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You may see two sets of tabs at the bottom of the record. One set comes from the form arrangement in your source system, and the other comes from Cortex's related item navigation. Both are showing related data - they are just organized differently depending on how your system was configured.

If you have built a search you want to reuse, you can save it:

  1. Build your search using the text box and/or filters.
  2. Click Save.
  3. Give the search a name.
  4. Click Save.

The search will appear on the home page under Saved Searches.

Depending on your Cortex Security Group permissions, you may be able to save searches for yourself only, or for everyone. If you only have permission to save for yourself, a message will indicate this when you go to save.

Managing Saved Searches​

From the Saved Searches list on the home page, each saved search has two action buttons:

  • Gear icon - opens the search editor, where you can update the search criteria and customize which columns appear in the results grid.
  • Trash icon - deletes the search. You can always delete your own searches. Whether you can delete a search saved for everyone depends on your permissions - if you do not have permission, the delete button will not be visible.

Customizing Columns​

Which columns appear in the results grid is decided by the data source's own grid definition unless you choose your own. You can make that choice from the results of a search, or from a saved search so that it is kept.

From the search results. Click Customize Columns in the results toolbar to open the chooser for the table you are searching:

  1. Pick a column from the list and click Add.
  2. Put the columns in the order you want with the Move Up and Move Down buttons on each row.
  3. Remove a column you no longer want with its remove button.
  4. Click Close once you are done - the results grid uses the columns you chose.

The chooser opens with the columns the results are already showing. Use Default Columns restores the columns the data source defines for that table. Choosing nothing means the same thing: the columns you choose override the data source's columns, so with no columns chosen Cortex shows what the data source defines.

From a saved search. The search editor you reach with the gear icon in the Saved Searches list has a Columns tab for the same choice. Columns saved with a search are applied every time that search is run.

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Cherwell archives use their own column chooser, which additionally lets you drag rows into position with the handle beside each column name.

Troubleshooting​

If you are having trouble with search results or filters, see:

Troubleshooting