So what is CISearch.NET

Modern computer systems are meant to help people by giving them the information that they need, when they need it. The reality is actually quite different. Often employees can spend a lot of time looking for a piece of information that they need.

CISearch can best be described as your very own 'Google' style search engine for your computer system. It allows you to harness the power of Microsoft Indexing Service in a centralised and managed way. Once installed it sets to work indexing and cataloguing all of the files and content in your network shares and Exchange environment.

Your users can then use the CISearch web interface to literally search the contents of millions of your files in a few seconds.

Features :-

- One centralised install, only one catalogue of your files has to be maintained, not one per workstation like most other network search solutions

- Absolutely not client software to deploy

- Works with any client with IE 5.5sp2 or higher.

- Incredibly fast searches.

- Unique Intelliquery(tm) search optimisation for accurate results every time

- Complete browser based administration functions

Totally respects NTFS and Exchange mailbox permissions

Details :-

You can search by using any combination of  a) contents b) file name c) file type d) date last modified e) size f) location and g) author. Plus you can also sort your results by relevance or date modified.

Results are returned with summary information and an extract of the text of the item. You are also given a link that you can click on to open the document where ever it is.

You can even predefine search starts points for users and give them user friendly names. For example, '\\server1\data\sales' and '\\server1\data\support' could be presented to users as "Sales" and "Support". Users can then choose to search just one of these predefined locations by choosing the friendly name for that location.

All you need is a server running Windows 2000 SP4 or later and your set. You get the searching benefits of expensive document management systems without all the costs and having to reorganise your Exchange environment or network file systems.

You don't need to know anything about Indexing service, ASP, Internet Information Server or anything else for that matter to deploy CISearch.

Features

1) Simple to use and easy to deploy. No knowledge of ASP or Indexing service required

2) Extensive documentation covering installation, configuration and there is even an end user guide.

3) CISearch fully respects Exchange mailbox/public folder and NTFS file and folder permissions, only showing users the files that they have the rights to see.

Indexing Service by default does not respect NTFS/Exchange permissions in relation to the user submitting the query, just the account that has been used to create each catalog. CISearch.Net not only tackles this problem by only showing users the files that they have the rights to see, but it turns it into one of its biggest strengths. It is the only commercial product to our knowledge using Indexing Service that does this.

4) Trademark InteliQuery(tm) search optimisation engine re-works and re-formats user searches to ensure nothing but accurate and relevant results.

5) One time centralised deployment with no software to install on your workstations, just install on your server and go. CISearch.Net can therefore be deployed to thousands of users in just a few minutes.

6) Easy to use prefix and inflection based fuzzy searches.

How does it work

When Microsoft released Windows 2000 they included a wonderful thing called "Indexing service". However its true potential was never realised (unless you purchased something like SharePoint).

They did however release some sample code to show it was possible to hook into it from a web based application. We found that code and after allot of work and modification got it working, really really well.

Then we created an install routine, customised query processing logic, documentation, user guides etc etc. The end result is CISearch.

The technical bit

When you run the CISearch setup, Indexing service on the server it is being installed on is re-configured for you. The setup then installs ASP based search forms onto that server and creates a virtual directory under IIS. The process is entirely automated, and once it is finished all you need to do is tell Indexing service what you want to include in the CI Search catalogue. Users will then be able to point their web browser to a URL ( " http:// servername / CISearch ") and access the search forms.

If you want to you can then define search start points for users as mentioned above.

CISearch is the flexible and powerful approach to document location and retrieval. It is also a powerful knowledge management tool.

Full documentation is provided in PDF's that cover the install, plus configuring and tuning CI Search and Indexing service. There's even  an end user guide to help users get the most out of the solution. There are screenshots throughout the documentation making installation and setup a breeze.