Viewing and Modifying the Search Thesaurus

You can add synonyms to the search thesaurus, or import a predefined list of thesaurus terms. Synonyms allow users to locate documents containing words related to their search terms; when a word is searched, both it and its synonyms will be returned. In many ways, this feature resembles root word search (in which searching for "swim" will also return documents with the words "swam" and "swum,") but allows administrators to customize the associations and to add associations between search terms that are not simply variations on the same term. For example, an administrator could make the words "dog" and "hound" synonyms of one another, or the names "Katherine" and "Katie," or the acronym "NASA" and the full name "National Aeronautics and Space Administration." Administrators can configure the thesaurus list in the Web Administration Console.

The search thesaurus will be used for all indexed searches, but not for non-indexed searches. See Indexed Searches and Indexing for more information. Once the thesaurus has been configured, it will be used by default for all users performing indexed searches.

Viewing the Search Thesaurus

The search thesaurus can be viewed and edited in the Laserfiche Web Administration Console. To view the current search thesaurus, open the Laserfiche Web Administration Console and log in to your repository as a user with the Configure Search/Index privilege. Select the Index node and then the Thesaurus tab. You will be able to view any configured thesaurus terms. If you have both predefined and user-defined thesaurus terms, you can also use the Predefined and User-defined filters to show only one or the other.

Predefined and User-Defined Thesaurus Terms

There are three ways to add terms to your thesaurus: by manually configuring thesaurus terms, by importing a list of predefined thesaurus terms, or by importing an XML file containing thesaurus terms configured in another Laserfiche repository.

The list of predefined thesaurus terms is derived from Princeton University's WordNet lexical database, and contains many common synonyms. You can use the predefined thesaurus to automatically populate the thesaurus with entries. To use the predefined thesaurus, select the Import Predefined button. If you want to stop using the predefined thesaurus values, you can select the Clear Predefined button. You can also remove individual predefined thesaurus entries (see Deleting Thesaurus Terms, below) or modify them by adding or removing synonyms (see Adding or Modifying Thesaurus Terms, below). Note that if you modify a predefined thesaurus term, it will become a user-defined thesaurus term.

Adding or Modifying Thesaurus Terms

You can add new thesaurus terms, or modify existing terms to add or remove synonyms.

To add or modify a thesaurus term

Open the Laserfiche Web Administration console and log in to your repository as a user with the Configure Search/Index privilege.
Select the Index node and then the Thesaurus tab.
Do one of the following:
- To add a new thesaurus term, select the Add button.
- To modify an existing thesaurus term, click the name of the term.
If you are configuring a new thesaurus term, type the term in the Term option. (If you are modifying an existing thesaurus term, this option will not be editable.)
Example: To configure synonyms for the term 'dog,' type 'dog' in the Term option.
Add terms that you want to have included when searching for the term that you are configuring by clicking the Add button in the Include the above term when searching for these terms option, and then typing the name of the term.
Example: If you want documents containing the word 'dog' to be returned when you search for documents containing the words 'hound' or 'animal,' add both 'hound' and 'animal' to the Include the above term when searching for these terms option.
Add items that you want to include when searching for the term that you are configuring by clicking the Add button in the Include these terms when searching for the above term option, and then typing the name of the term.
Example: If you want documents containing the words 'hound' and 'poodle' to be returned when you search for documents containing the word 'dog,' add both 'hound' and 'poodle' to the Include these terms when searching for the above term option.
If you want to remove an association between search terms, select the term and then select the Delete button.
Click Save to save your changes.
Example: If you configured your thesaurus according to the examples above, users performing searches for the word 'dog' would also find documents containing 'hound' and vice versa. When performing a search for the word 'animal' they would also find documents containing the word 'dog,' but not vice versa, and when performing a search for the word 'dog' they would also return documents containing the word 'poodle,' but not vice versa.

Tip: Multi-word terms are supported by the thesaurus. For instance, you could associate the acronym "NASA" with the phrase "National Aeronautics and Space Agency," or you could associate the name "John Smith" with the name "Smith."

Deleting Thesaurus Terms

Both user-defined and predefined thesaurus terms can be removed from the repository by selecting one or more terms and then selecting the Delete button. If you remove a thesaurus term, you will also remove any terms for which it is the only synonym. (For example, if "Suzi" is the only term for which "Suzanne" is a synonym, deleting "Suzi" will also delete the term "Suzanne.") However, if you remove a thesaurus term whose synonyms also have other synonyms of their own, those synonyms will not be removed. (For example, if the term "Anderson" has synonyms "Andersen" and "Andersson," deleting the term "Andersson" will not cause the term "Anderson" to be deleted.) To remove all predefined thesaurus terms at once, you can also select the Clear Predefined button. This will not affect any user-defined terms, including predefined terms that became user-defined because they were modified.

Importing and Exporting Thesaurus Terms

You can export some or all of your thesaurus terms as XML, which can then be imported into another repository, used as a backup, or manually modified. To export thesaurus terms, select the terms you want to export. (To export search terms across all pages, first set the results display box at the bottom of the term list to All.) Once all the terms have been selected, select the Export button. The thesaurus terms will be exported as an XML file.

Select the Import button to import a thesaurus XML file. You will be prompted to navigate to your thesaurus XML file. You will also need to select one of the following options for conflict handling:

Overwrite existing thesaurus entries when there are conflicts between user-defined entries: This option will cause existing thesaurus terms to be modified if there is a difference between those thesaurus terms in the repository and in the XML, and may result in synonyms being added or removed. Thesaurus terms not defined in the XML will not be modified.
Roll back import operation when there are conflicts between user-defined thesaurus entries: This option will cause the import to be canceled and changes rolled back if there is a difference between existing thesaurus terms in the repository and terms in the XML.