Understanding OL Connect Search

This chapter explains how OL Connect Search works and how to configure it to search one or more OL Connect Image PDF archives.

There are three key points to understand with respect to how OL Connect Search works:

  1. Every search you perform is done on a search database that OL Connect Search builds from the information in the PDI files generated by OL Connect Image.

    Although the PDI file contains all the information OL Connect Search needs to perform a search, OL Connect Search uses databases to eliminate the need to open and search individual PDI files, making searches faster and more efficient. See Search Database for help understanding databases.

  2. You define the contents of a search database.

    You specify the OL Connect Image PDF folders you want to include in the search database.

  3. You can have as many search databases as you need.

    For each search database you want to build, you first create a search profile and then build the database. A search profile can reference exactly one search database, so each search database you want to build requires a separate search profile. See Search Profile for a complete description of search profiles.

Note: Since OL Connect Search searches the database and not the PDF and PDI files themselves, if the PDF files indexed in the search database change, you must update the database to ensure searches yield accurate results. For example, if you have a document that executes in OL Connect Image on a weekly basis, you would also update the search databases that contain the index information for that document on a weekly basis. See Search Database and in particular Updating a Search Database: Refresh vs. Rebuild.

You can configure OL Connect Image to automatically add information to an existing search database when it executes a document. If a record for the document already exists in the database, OL Connect Image adds the index information to the database. If the document does not yet exist in the database, OL Connect Image adds a new record for the document along with the index information for the document, to the database. This is useful when you want to eliminate the need to refresh or rebuild the database from within OL Connect Search. Consult the OL Connect Workflow User Guide for more information on this feature.

In a network installation of OL Connect Search, it is common to want to restrict access to search databases in order to ensure the integrity of search results. See Database Integrity in a Network Installation.