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GCN Home > 11/20/06 issue

ISYS finds it your way

GCN Lab Review | ISYS:desktop 8 lets you leave your files where they are and still let users search through them efficiently

By Greg Crowe, GCN Staff

Using enterprise search software is a great way to ensure that everybody in your organization has access to the information they need to do their jobs.

Unfortunately, implementing such software often requires completely reorganizing your file structure, possibly renaming each file to follow a convention required by the software.

ISYS:desktop 8, from ISYS Search Software lets you leave your files where they are and still let users search through them efficiently.

When you open ISYS:desktop 8 for the first time, it asks you to identify the location or locations of the files you want to search. There is no need to move or reorganize the files—ISYS is able to work with the files in their present state.

Performing a query can be as simple as entering a search term into the field locateat the top of the screen. For a more elaborate search, you can formulate a query with a menu-driven wizard. For even finer control, you also have the option of using the ISYS query language, which isn’t too different from other query languages.

If you don’t want to take the time to learn the syntax of the query language, you can also use the Natural Language Query option. This lets you type in your search request in your own words. The software will attempt to interpret the request.

Although it isn’t perfect, we found it did a good job of deciphering all but the most convoluted phrases.

Whichever way you choose to search, the results come up quickly and can be sorted by relevance, location or many other possible characteristics. The display indicates what type of file it is and how many occurrences of your search term ISYS found.

The search has a number of advanced features as well. ISYS extracts names of people, organizations, places, e-mail addresses and Web sites, listing them in a separate window.

We found this very helpful in fine-tuning searches. For example, the software can pinpoint documents on a certain topic that have to do only with a specific department within an organization.

More news on related topics: Communications / Networks, Software Applications, Content / Record Management



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