Summary: A busy workday is a lot easier when you can find the right information fast. Whether you're looking for a colleague's contact details, the latest HR policy, or an upcoming event, Speakap's search does the heavy lifting for you. This guide covers where to search, the difference between instant suggestions and full searches, and how results are ranked.
Where to search
Speakap gives you both global and local ways to search your network:
- Global search bar (web): At the top of your screen.
- Global search bar (mobile): Tap the search icon in the top right corner of the app.
- Local search filters: Beyond the global bar, you'll find standalone search tools inside your News, Files, and Events lists to quickly filter through long lists of content.
Instant suggestions vs. full search
As you start typing in the global search bar, a "Suggest" box pops up beneath your cursor. Suggestions and full searches work very differently:
- Suggestions: Quick shortcuts built for speed. They only cover News, Polls, Events, Users, and Groups, and they only scan titles. If your keyword sits in the body text of an article, it won't show up here.
- Full search: When you press Enter or tap the search command, Speakap searches all content types in depth, including Updates and Files, for a complete set of results.
How results are ranked
When you run a full search, several factors decide what shows up first:
- Titles first: If your search term appears in the title of a document, post, or file, it goes to the top of your results.
- Newer is better: You probably need this year's holiday schedule, not an archived copy from years ago. Newer posts surface first, and older entries fade into the background.
- Rare keywords count more: A common word like "Policy" returns a huge number of hits. A rare, specific term like "Bereavement" is treated as high-value, so exact matches get priority.
- Word frequency: The more often a keyword appears in a document, the higher that content ranks. This only applies to meaningful terms; common words like "the" or "and" don't get a boost.
- Words close together: If you search a phrase like "Running Event", items where those words sit close together in the text rank higher, even if a few minor words separate them.
Search tips and shortcuts
A few behaviors worth knowing:
- Pro tip, the plus sign (+): A plus sign between search terms (for example, product+roadmap) acts as exact-match glue. Search will strictly return results where those exact words are touching each other.
- Typo tolerance: Misspell a word in a rush (like "Vacaton" instead of "Vacation")? No problem. Search recognizes what you meant and still delivers the right results.
- Partial word matching: You can find content by typing incomplete words (like "prod" to find "product"). This only works when the keyword is in a title. If the partial word sits in the body of a Feed update, search won't find it.
Still stuck?
Email us at support@speakap.com with your network name, what you searched for, and what you expected to find, and we'll help you out.