BoardCloud Lucene Search Tips

In May 2025 the BoardCloud search was updated to use the Lucene Search Engine.

The new search has proved to be faster and more reliable than the previous solution.

More details on documents that can be searched as well as the Reindex Search function.

Below are updated to tips.

Search Tips for Better Results

  1. Use Quotation Marks for Exact Phrases

    • Search for exact phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks.

    • Example: "meeting minutes" will only return results with this exact phrase.

The same phrase without the quotes will return all matches for both words, not necessarily the entire phrase.

  1. Combine Terms with AND, OR, NOT

    • Use AND to include multiple terms.

    • Use OR to broaden the search.

    • Use NOT to exclude terms.

    • Example: agenda AND minutes or agenda OR notes or agenda NOT draft.

  2. Wildcard Searches

    • Use a ? for single character wildcards.

    • Use a * for multi-character wildcards.

    • Example: te?t matches "text" or "test", and doc* matches "document" or "doctor".

  3. Fuzzy Searches for Similar Words

    • Add ~ to a term to find similar words.

    • Example: board~ will match "bored" and "broad" as well.

    • Adjust the similarity with a number (0.0 to 1.0) like board~0.8.

  4. Proximity Searches

    • Use ~ with a phrase to find words close to each other.

    • Example: "board meeting"~5 finds results where "board" and "meeting" are within 5 words.

For inclusive ranges and curly braces for exclusive.

    • Example: dat:[2023-01-01 TO 2024-12-31] or status:{draft TO final}.

  1. Boost Terms for Importance

    • Use ^ to boost the relevance of a term.

    • Example: agenda^2 minutes gives more weight to "agenda".