Searching, filtering, selecting, and bulk actions on content elements

What is it? 

A key aspect of the ITONICS application is finding the right content pieces. As it serves as your internal intelligence system for everything innovation, you need to know how to best detect the content you are looking for. After finding the right content pieces, you can either process them individually (by liking, viewing, commenting, and alike) or as a bulk.  

How does it work? 

The ITONICS Innovation OS provides you with two options to search for elements and multiple options to slice and dice the content database by applying filters:

Search for content via the Global Search Bar

The global search bar is located in the top right corner of the main navigation bar and is always visible. To start the search, enter a search term in the search field. The 5 most recent elements whose title, abstract, description, or tags include the search term will be displayed. Additionally, a scroll bar is available to see further results directly under the search bar. 

If you click on a title, the detail page of this content element will open in another tab. 

You can also use Boolean operators to specify your search.

To view all results, click on the "View all Elements" Button and the Explorer page will open.

Search for content via the 'Search bars under filters'

All ITONICS modules include a filter section. Respectively to what is displayed in the different modules, the search space is formed. If you access a portfolio matrix, it is likely that only content of the type project is available there and, thus, searches will be conducted on the available project information. 

The most comprehensive search is available in the Explorer. The Explorer is the heart of the ITONICS application as it lists all the content that is stored on the application. Thus, it will allow you to search for content across different categories, and it will also allow you to filter the content by defined values.

After clicking on the Filter button, a new menu appears, and the search bar appears under the first tab Search.

You can search for content by typing search term(s) in the search bar. 

The search is a full-text search, meaning that it scans every textual information that has been added to the database, such as in titles, abstracts, descriptions, or other text fields.

The Explorer search bar adds your search term to the active filters when you hit enter. 

Once a search term has been entered, there is the option to select the Relevance sorting option.

If selected, the scoring logic is applied, which considers the Title, Abstract, Description, and Tags of an element to determine the relevance of an element for an underlying search. Hereby, a match of the search term in the Title field is assign a higher score compared to a match, i.e. in the Description field (Title > Abstract > Description > Tags), whereas an exact match  of the search term is also receiving a higher scoring compared to the occurrence of the search term within another word.

Also, be aware that performing a search for the same search term in the global search bar and then clicking on “View all Elements” will redirect to the Explorer with the Relevance sorting already applied, to ensure that the search results do match.

Furthermore, the results of your search can be influenced by how you type in your search query. In general, search terms are not case-sensitive: "ITONICS"="Itonics"="itonics", yet the use of Boolean operators is, i.e., it needs to be "OR" instead of "or".

To narrow down/specify results

1. Use the Boolean Operator AND, e.g., eco AND green (only returns items that contain both words
2. Exclude terms by using the Boolean Operator NO, e.g., eco NOT green (returns items which include eco but not green)
3. Specify search terms with quotation marks "[text]", e.g., (multi OR Omni) AND "channel" (returns results that must include "channel" in the text fields and either "multi" or "omni") or "eco green", only returns items that contain both words.
4. Searching within specific fields using "field:<term>", e.g., "title:car OR tags:automotive" (results in showing items that contain "car" in the title or have a tag called "automotive". Other possible field keywords are:"abstract:<term>" and "description:<term>". Please do not add blank spaces between colon and search term)

To widen search results

1. Use the Boolean Operator OR, e.g., eco OR green (returns items that contain either of the words "eco" or "green"). The same applies when using a Whitespace between your search terms, e.g., eco green (returns items that contain either eco OR green)
2. Use a Wildcard search at the end of a search term "*", e.g., block* (returns results that include text, such as "block", "blocks,", "blockers", "blockchain", and alike)
3. Fuzzy search: "~", e.g., foam~ (returns results with "foam", "roam" or "foams")

To clear the search, remove your search term from the active filters area by clicking on the X next to the filter. The search help can be found via the question mark next to the search bar.

Using filters to search the content database by pre-defined values 

If you want to search the database by specific pre-defined values, you can use the various filter options that appear in the tabs right to the search tab in the filter menu.

You can apply various filters in order to find the elements you are looking for. You will see filters based on the settings applied by your application owner. 

In general, there are different types of filters:

Combining pre-defined filter values with entity type specific filters

To narrow down the search even more you can combine pre-defined, general filter options with filters applicable to a specific entity type. This is also possible across multiple entity types. 

In the example provided here, the general filter option Status: Published applies for both entity types (1). The filter is then combined with entity type specific filter options for the two entities Opportunity (2) and Trend (3). To e.g., include the Recommended Action filter, you first have to click the Opportunity Filter tab. The selected filter combination then results in the following search result:

All elements that are in Status: Published

AND

(All elements of entity type Opportunity with the Recommended Action: Validate

OR

All elements of entity type Trend with the Recommended Action: Explore)

Currently, this advanced filtering is available on the Explorer, Roadmap, Tag Cloud, and Network Graph module.

Saving custom filters for easier recall

If you use a certain filter recurring, it comes in handy to save this filter. After applying your filters and/or searches, click the button Save Filter at the bottom right of the Active filters. 

Give your filter a name and save it. You will then find your saved filters in the Filter tab under the Saved Filter drop-down menu. Use the gear wheel icon to open the list of saved filters, where you can delete them via the Trash can icon.  Note that filters shared with all users or a selection of users can only be deleted by the Admin/Application Owners and the creator of the particular filter, whereas the editing of saved filters with visibility for all users, respectively selected users is controlled from dedicated permissions.

Within the Save Filter popup modal, you see an overview of the Selected Filters, where you can still unselect Filters if wanted. Now, you have the option to save a filter for your private use, share a filter with all users within the system (tied to a permission), or share a filter with only a selection of users, -groups, -roles, or contexts. Note that only for the latter option, you can choose to notify the selected users if needed.

Note the known limitation that the filters “Created by me”, “Rated by me”, and similar filters cannot be shared among other users.

Saved filters can be edited again via the Manage Saved/Quick Filters gear icon of the Saved Filters field. Clicking on the edit icon of a saved filter will re-open the same Save Filter modal. You can edit the title of your saved filter, unselect already selected filters, or adjust the visibility, while no new filters can be added to an existing saved filter via the edit mode.

• Private: only the creator of the filter can edit the saved filter.
• Selected Users: only the creator of the filter can edit the saved filter. Additionally, if shared with an Application Owner user, the respective application Owner user can also edit the saved filter.
• Public: only the creator of the filter AND the Application Owner role can edit the saved filter.

Please note that generally a notification can only be send out to other users when creating a "Selected Users" filter, or changing the visibility of an existing filter to "Selected Users". Nevertheless, editing or deleting a public filter with visibility set to "All Users" will trigger a notification to the creator of the saved filter and any Application Owner having the respective notification subscribed in their settings.

Applying bulk actions on filtered elements

Once filtered, you generate a specific view of the content database, and it is likely that you want to progress further with the content filtered. To see all available bulk actions, you first need to select one, multiple, or all content elements. 

To select one or multiple content elements, click on the white space of a content card. If the content piece(s) has/have been selected, the element will be marked by a thick, pink color border.

To select all content elements, click on the select button and select All

Once the content has been selected, a new menu appears next to the Select button.

Note: If more than one Element is selected, some actions may be hidden.

The actions include:

• Follow/Unfollow to receive updates as changes happen to the content 
• Relate to relate the selected content with each other
• Create Newsletter to create a newsletter directly with the content selected
• Send to archive to hide (outdated) content elements
• Delete to permanently remove content
• Export to Excel or PDF to progress the content further elsewhere
• Show Relations to see how the content is related to each other. This will open the Network Graph.
• Create Element with Relations to create a new content element that is related to the content selected 

What the labels on content cards mean

If you engage in searches and filtering, you will see the results as cards or in a list view. While you go through the card result list, you might see different labels put on the content elements. 

Labels put on the top left of a content element reflect the publication status of the element. If no label is visible, the content is published. If you see a label, it will indicate one of the following options:

• draft for elements that have not been published and are saved for later editing. Please note that it is also possible to rate elements in draft.
• archived for elements that are not published anymore
• review for elements that are currently under review

You can also filter for content and the according publication status via the Filter button > Filter.

Besides the labels put on the top left corner, the Application Owner might have designed custom labels. The values accordingly are shown in the lower right corner. If an element has been added within the last 30 days to the database, another label appears at the top right corner, marking the element as 'New'.

Please note: The time period for elements labeled as "new" can be changed by ITONICS. Please contact your Customer Innovation Success Manager for further assistance.