Everything You Need to Know About Enterprise Search Software
Businesses often rely on a wide range of apps to perform critical functions throughout the day. In fact, the average company uses over 200 applications. While these apps likely add value to your company, they could also be slowly reducing productivity and efficiency by making it harder for your employees to access the data they need. Not only can your company’s data become so fragmented that your employees don’t know where to look, but even when they do know, they may still struggle to find the information they’re looking for.
Fortunately, enterprise search software has come to the rescue by helping businesses simplify and streamline the search process, making it easier than ever for their employees to find the data they need. This software has grown increasingly popular in recent years, as it gives employees the ability to search across internal databases, files, and applications to quickly access the data they need with minimal hassle.
Yet, if you’re unfamiliar with enterprise search, you may find yourself wondering what it is, how this software works, and why you should consider investing in these tools for your business. To help you better understand this increasingly popular tool, keep reading as we take a deeper look at everything you need to know about enterprise search software.
What is Enterprise Search?
Enterprise search is specialized search software designed to help businesses search across their internal data, documentation, files, databases, and applications to quickly find the information they’re looking for. The fact is that businesses constantly collect vast amounts of data, which can make it difficult to find the right information when they need it. This may cause employees to waste time searching through databases and applications to find the specific file they need. Fortunately, enterprise search engines shorten the time it takes to find data, allowing employees to focus on more important tasks, which maximizes efficiency.
How Does Enterprise Search Work?
What makes enterprise search tools so valuable is how simple they are to use, as they can quickly provide users access to the data they need. However, these tools are anything but basic, as a lot of complex technology works in the background to create such a seamless experience for users. To quickly deliver users the data they need, enterprise search tools function in three phases:
1. Exploration
Alternatively referred to as the collection phase, this is the phase in which the enterprise search engine will crawl all data to gather information from across your organization’s internal and external data sources. The search engine will scan databases, files, and applications for relevant information and extract the data for indexing.
2. Indexing
Once the search engine has extracted the relevant data, the software then sorts it into indexes or relational databases where the information can be easily accessed when queried. These indexes are what make it possible for enterprise search engines to quickly find information, helping to facilitate accurate and quick data retrieval.
3. Querying
Once the data has been indexed, it can then be queried by end-users. This is the part of the enterprise search process most people are familiar with, as this is when a user searches for information. The enterprise search engine then provides relevant data based on the user’s authorizations and permissions. To answer a query, the search engine reviews the indexes and looks for matching data.
The Benefits of Implementing an Enterprise Search Tool
Enterprise search is a transformative tool that can make it easy for businesses to quickly access the data they need with minimal hassle. Not only do enterprise search engines make it easier to access data, but they also help organizations centralize information, reducing fragmentation and enhancing efficiency. For this reason, more and more businesses are turning to enterprise search software to break down data silos and give their employees a simple way to access the information they need.
If you have yet to invest in enterprise search software for your business, here is a look at just a few of the benefits doing so can provide.
Improved Accuracy
One of the biggest benefits of enterprise search engines is their accuracy. The enhanced accuracy these search tools provide minimizes the risk of errors and enables users to quickly find and access the information they need. This saves valuable time by eliminating manual searches across various applications and databases.
Increased Productivity
Since employees will be spending less time searching for the information they need, this means that they can spend more time focused on the work they were hired to do. Search engines then empower employees to be more productive by allowing them to focus on the task at hand instead of spending hours a day searching for data.
Enhanced Cross-Team Collaboration
Enterprise search engines also make it easy for employees to stay up to date on any information within the company, as they will have access to information from other teams. While data used to be team-specific, siloed in whatever tools each team used, enterprise search tools enhance collaboration by making information easily accessed on a company-wide level.
Reduced Data Silos
Without proper search tools, data is often locked away from the users who need it as data becomes fragmented across different departments, teams, and applications. These data silos hamper collaboration and data sharing, which can decrease productivity. Fortunately, enterprise search engines enable employees to search across all data sources in the company, reducing data silos.
Key Features of Enterprise Search
If you think enterprise search may be a good fit for your company, it is important that you know what to look for when evaluating enterprise search software. The fact is that not all products are the same, with some prioritizing certain features over others. To help you choose the right product for your company, here’s a look at the most important features to look for in an enterprise search tool.
Connectors
How effective your enterprise search product will depend on the number of connectors it has or the ease of adding new connectors. A connector is a component that uses various protocols to provide a codeless connection to and from different touchpoints, enabling you to sync data from an original source to an index. Ensuring the software you choose has enough connectors is key to the functionality of an enterprise search engine, as it helps integrate all your company’s data into the software.
Data Security
Data security and privacy are essential in the enterprise search process. Given the breadth of data access that an enterprise search tool has, ensuring your company’s data (as well as any client data you store) is protected is essential. It is then critical that you ensure that the software you choose complies with your company’s security policies, SOC2, and regulations like GDPR. Take your time to find the right enterprise search tool that will protect your business’s assets and ensure the integrity and confidentiality of your data.
Advanced Search Features
Advanced Search Capabilities:
- Boolean Operators: Supports complex search queries using AND, OR, and NOT operators.
- Wildcard Searches: Allows the use of wildcards to find variations of words.
- Natural Language Processing (NLP)Understands and processes natural language queries to deliver relevant results.
- Federated Searc
h:Aggregates results from multiple sources, including local drives, network drives, SharePoint, and other cloud services. - Real-Time Indexing: Updates the search index in real-time or near real-time to ensure the latest information is searchable.
Future Trends in Enterprise Search
Of course, enterprise search is constantly evolving as new technology is developed, which means that the features that are currently important to have in enterprise search software may not be relevant tomorrow. Companies at the forefront of enterprise search technology are continually developing enhanced search capabilities that yield better results and relevance and increase user engagement.
If you are looking for an enterprise search vendor who you can trust to provide the most cutting-edge software, look no further than Copernic. For over two decades, we have been a leader in enterprise search, being the trusted vendor for government agencies, universities, and major global brands. We work tirelessly to help our clients solve their search challenges, and we offer robust technology that will help make your life easier.
Ready to see for yourself how Copernic’s powerful enterprise search tools can make your job easier? Contact us to find out more about our technology or start a 30-day free trial today.