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What are some tips for searching in the Oracle B2C Service knowledge base?

Environment:

Oracle B2C Service Support site and Knowledge base

Resolution:

Below are several tips and tricks to find what you're looking for within the Oracle B2C Service knowledge base.

Searching for and viewing answers:
Answers matching the search conditions display the summary, along with the first few lines of the content.  View an answer by clicking the Summary link.

You can use either the basic or advanced search options.

• Basic Search:
  The knowledge base defaults to a basic search by keyword. This allows you to search for answers based on words, phrases, or an answer ID that are entered in the search box.
   
• Advanced Search: 
  Click the Advanced Search link to include Product and Category filtering options for a more refined search. This also provides sorting options.

To view an answer in a different language:

When viewing an answer, links to different language versions of that answer can be found on the right side of the page under "Available Languages for this Answer". Currently available options are:  English (US), Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese (Brazil).

Note: The "Available Languages for this Answer" section will not display if there are no language versions for that answer. If you would like to request an answer translation to one of the available languages listed above, you can submit a request for translation using the Answer Feedback option (i.e. select Yes to "Was this answer helpful?").

General Tips

The Oracle B2C Service knowledge base makes hundreds of useful answers to common (and sometimes not-so-common) questions available to our customers. Some answers provide steps and information for configuring and using features of our products. Other answers contain specific information for troubleshooting or customizing features of interest.

Before submitting a service request to Technical Support, searching the knowledge base first can save time.  When you do a search, you get results from the knowledge base, documentation and the community.

With so much information available, it is useful to know the different methods you can use to search for answers to your questions. There are also specific keyword search terms that will return a family of answers you may benefit from.  Please review the items below to gain more familiarity with utilizing our published knowledge base.

• Include Rare Words: When using the Search Text field, if possible, include rare or unique words that would be included in the answer content. This allows your search results to be more specific. 
  • For example, if you received an error within your application, using unique words from that error text can help narrow results.
       
• Use terminology consistent with our product: Our published answers use standard terminology that is consistent with our products and documentation.
  • For example, in our application the terms "incidents" and "answers" are used. Another organization may use "tickets" and "articles". Searching for terms that are not application-specific can return less than favorable results. 
     

Searching Phrases

You can search for answers based on specific words or phrases entered into the Search Text field. When multiple words or phrases are entered in the field, the words are searched using the OR functionality. Results are weighted. Meaning, answers that contain all or most of the words listed will generally appear at the top of your search results. Answers that contain only one of the multiple words listed will also appear in the search results, usually lower in the result set.

If you want to search using the AND functionality, be sure to include a plus sign (+) before each word. For example, "+custom +reports".  You can also just type AND between the words you are searching for.  You can also use the minus sign (-) or NOT.  If NOT is in all caps, a search for "rhythm NOT blues" will return answers that contain "rhythm" but will exclude any answers that contain "blues".  Note:  It is necessary to use a space as a separator between words. 

Note:  Combining the product and category filters along with using plus signs can greatly focus your results and reduce the number of answers returned.
 

 Useful Phrases for searching the B2C Service Knowledge Base

Specific to our site, there are a few useful keyword phrases that will return answers we hope you find helpful. 

• "Popular"
  This returns a family of answers useful if you want to learn about a feature or functionality.  These group related answers for a specific feature, providing you with a starting point.
   
• "Best Practices"
  This is another family of answers providing recommendations from Product Managers and Subject Matter Experts for a variety of features and functionality.  If you are looking to implement a new feature, this would be a great place to start.
   
• "Troubleshooting"
  Primarily written by our Technical Support staff, our troubleshooting type answers provide you with steps and information to resolve many common issues.  Should you need further assistance after stepping through one of these answers, you can submit a service request.  Provide the steps you did or things you checked with your results.  This can save time in the overall investigation and resolution.