Configure Search on Alation Cloud Service¶
Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation
This topic covers administrator-level configuration options for Alation Search on Alation Cloud Service. Configuration is performed either by a Server Admin through the Alation UI or by Alation Support through a backend configuration service.
Enable Ask Alation¶
Ask Alation is disabled by default. A Server Admin must enable it before users can access it.
Navigate to Admin Settings > Feature Configuration.
Locate the toggle Ask Alation Enabled and turn it on.
Optionally, turn on Ask Alation is restricted to admin users only to limit access to Server Admins while you evaluate the feature. Leave it off to make Ask Alation available to all users.
Click Save changes on top right to apply your changes.
Enable or Disable Search Autocomplete¶
Search Autocomplete is a Search feature that displays keyword suggestions as users type in the Search box. Clicking a suggestion uses it as the search keyword and opens the corresponding search results page.
Search Autocomplete is enabled by default. To enable or disable it, contact Alation Support.
Note
Refer to Enable or Disable Search Autocomplete for information about the configuration parameter that controls this setting.
Enable Combined Field Search¶
By default, a search for multiple keywords returns results where any one keyword appears in the object name, title, or description. Enabling Combined Field Search changes this behavior so that all keywords must be present across those fields, returning more precise, targeted results.
To enable Combined Field Search, contact Alation Support and request that the alation.search.enable_combined_field_search parameter be set to true.
Note
Combined Field Search is not available for Japanese text.
Enable Custom Field Search¶
By default, custom field values are not included in the main search index. Enabling Custom Field Search allows users to find objects by their custom field values directly from the search bar, without relying on search filters.
To enable Custom Field Search, contact Alation Support.
Note
Refer to Enable or Disable Custom Field Search for information about the configuration parameter that controls this setting.
Important
Enabling Custom Field Search overrides Field Permissions for most custom field types, making those values searchable even if their visibility has been restricted. If you have restricted custom field visibility, keep this feature disabled. Rich text field (RTF) content remains unsearchable when field permissions are set, even if Custom Field Search is enabled.
Configure Dot-Separated Search Behavior¶
By default, dot-separated search strings (for example, apple.orange) are interpreted as hierarchical catalog paths, where the first part is an ancestor of the second (such as a schema containing a table). To allow each part of a dot-separated string to be independently searchable instead, contact Alation Support and request that the alation.search.enable_search_with_literals parameter be set to true.
Hide the “Not Set” Filter Option¶
Search filters include a Not set option for objects where a particular field has not been populated. To remove Not set options from the filter UI, contact Alation Support, or refer to Enable or Disable Not Set Filters.
Configure Search Ranking¶
Search ranking can be tuned in two ways. Contact Alation Support to adjust either of the following:
Ranking by object type — controls the relative boost applied to different object types in search results. By default, Data Sources, Terms, Articles, and Tags receive the highest boost. See Set Search Ranking by Object Type.
Ranking by trust flags — controls how much Endorsement boosts and Deprecation penalizes an object’s rank. See Set Search Ranking for the Endorsement and Deprecation Flags.
Disable Intelligent Search¶
Intelligent Search is enabled by default on Deluxe tier and above. To disable it and revert to Keyword Search only, contact Alation Support.
Enable Lexicon Search¶
Lexicon Search is enabled by default. It treats confirmed Lexicon abbreviation-expansion pairs as search synonyms. To enable or disable Lexicon Search, refer to Enable or Disable Lexicon Search.
Manage Search Synonyms¶
Custom search synonyms can be created, viewed, and deleted via the Search Synonym API. Synonyms allow users to find objects using alternative terms — for example, defining msft as a synonym for Microsoft.