• Glossary
  • Category: A category is a collection of documents available on the website (think of it like a directory that contains files), a document can belong to many categories.
    Document: Documents refer to media files (images, videos, PDF or others).
    Principal file : For image files, it is a low resolution version to be displayed in web pages.
    For videos, PDF, Word, Excel, PPT or other formats, the principal file is generally the original file.
    Associated files : An associated file can be the original file (High definition /HD) or other file derivated from the original (lower resolution, other format).
    For videos, PDF documents, Word, Excel, PPT or other formats, the original file is generally stored as the principal file. Each associated file has an assigned number (FA1, FA2, etc) that usually corresponds to a specific type or resolution.
    Thesaurus: An organized collection of keywords stored in a tree structure, possibly with synonyms.
    Choice Lists: A collection of keywords or values stored as a flat alphabetically ordered list.
  • Simple search with suggested keyword
  • Type the word to search (or just the first letters) into the search box inside the search area. An auto-complete list of suggested words from the thesaurus is displayed, select the keyword that matches your search and click the « OK » button. Once a keyword is selected, you cannot add others. This is quite normal! The search engine will only consider fields that contain keywords stored in thesaurus and will ignore free text fields.

    To complete or narrow your search results, you have several possible choices:
    - Enter a new word, then deploy the dropdown menu at the right of the search box and select « Within the X documents »
    - Use the faceted search results in the « Refine search » panel at the left of the window, if this feature has been enabled for the website.
    - Use advanced search

    Good to know:
    - Search is not case sensitive and accented characters do not affect search results.
    - According to his profile and rights, a user can only see what he is allowed to see. This applies to both documents and categories.
    - The hyphen character (-) is considered as a space by the search engine.
  • Global search with no suggested keyword
  • Type a word or phrase in the search box without taking care of the suggested keywords and click the « OK » button. The search engine will scan all fields in documents without exception.

    The benefit is that whatever the word or phrase, if they exists, this will return results.
    The drawback is that results can be less accurate, with potential noise (irrelevant results).

    To complete or narrow your search results, you have several possible choices:
    - Enter a new word then deploy the dropdown menu and select « Within the X documents »
    - Use the faceted search results in the « Refine search » panel at the left of the window, if this feature has been enabled for the website.
    - Use advanced search

    Good to know:
    - Search is not case sensitive and accented characters do not affect search results.
    - According to his profile and rights, a user can only see what he is allowed to see. This applies to both documents and categories.
    - The hyphen character (-) is considered as a space by the search engine.

  • Advanced search : "begins with" / "contains" / "is equal to" operators
  • Begins with
    Using the « begins with » operator will show documents that contain keywords beginning with the typed letters. This is the most used search method. Compound words are considered individually, whether separated by a space or hyphen (when searching "term", one can get documents containing the keyword "long-term")
    For example: if you search for documents that contain the word « navigator », you can only type the first letters « nav » in the search box. A list of suggested words from the thesaurus beginning with these letters will be displayed. Select the keyword that matches your search and click « OK ».

    Contains or @
    For example : @mon = lemon, monkey, testimony, etc... It is the less restrictive search but also the most irrelevant. If indexing is accurate and neat, you should rather use the « Begins with » operator. Using the « Contains » search can give « noisy » results (with too many irrelevant responses). Nonetheless this remains interesting to search for a very specific sequence of characters.

    Is equal to
    Search for a specific word or phrase. This is the most restrictive search method. It is often used for an advanced search but seldom for a simple search. It remains interesting for databases with extremely large funds or to search for product references for instance.
    For example: if you type
    GREEN LEMON
    the search engine will process the following search operation:
    is equal to « GREEN » + implicit « AND » operator + is equal to GREEN »

  • Advanced search / Multi-criteria search: for experts only!
  • To perform an advanced search you can deploy the « gear-wheel » menu or click the « Advanced search » button.

    On each line, choose the field in which you want to search.
    Choose the search operator (begins with / contains / is equal to) and the boolean operators (and / or / except).
    Type the first letters of the searched word or phrase (or enter a date for a date field).
    Click the « book » icon at the right to display a list of possible keywords for the selected field and click the matching keyword to insert it into the corresponding search box.
    Click the "Search" button to process and display the results.
    You can choose to search on all databases or only a set of databases (if this feature is available on your website).

    Good to know:
    - Search is not case sensitive and accented characters do not affect search results.
    - According to his profile and rights, a user can only see what he is allowed to see. This applies to both documents and categories.
    - The hyphen character (-) is considered as a space by the search engine.


  • Faceted search / Contextual search / Refine search
  • The goal is to refine the search results by applying filters to previous results.
    The number of occurrences is displayed near each keyword based on the search criteria (filters). Suggested keywords are listed in descending ordered of occurrences, thus making it possible to distinguish the words which are most present in the list of results.
    To perform a search, just click on the desired keyword, this will refine the search result.

    Faceted keywords change for every search because they depend on the set of documents previously found.
    Keywords with no occurrence are not displayed.
  • Search by geolocation
  • If this feature is enabled, it allows searching all geolocated documents, all documents that are not geolocated or those geolocated in the surroundings of a place.
    This is available by deploying the « gear-wheel » menu at the right of the search box or by clicking the « Search by geolocation » button.
    From the contact sheet, it is also possible to browse documents geographically close to a given geolocated document by clicking the « globe » icon under the thumbnail.
  • Search by color
  • This allows searching documents by color dominance. Deploy the « gear-wheel » menu at the right of the search box or click the « Search by color » button to display a palette of 35 predefined colors. Click one of the color square to start the search.

    From the contact sheet, it is also possible to find documents with similar colors by right-clicking the thumbnail of a given document.
  • Search by batch
  • This allows to perform a search using a set of terms or references.
    You can can copy/paste a list of values separated by a carriage return or a tabulation or the separator of your choice (if allowed) or a default separator.

    For example: if you have a list of document references that tou want to search, copy/paste these references into the input box using the proper separator.
  • Search by database / funds
  • This option is only available if the website can access many databases or funds. When available, you will see a list of databases or funds just to the right of the input box (for simple search) or at the bottom of the advanced search window.
  • Previous search
  • The « Previous search » menu allows to return to the contact sheet or list of documents corresponding to the last performed search. This menu will not appear if no search has been performed or if you have not browse any category to display a contact sheet or list of documents.
  • Change display mode
  • If available, click on the « Contact sheet » or « List » icon a the top left of the contact sheet or list of documents to change the display mode.
  • News
  • The « News » menu in the navigation area allows to display « newly added items » that can be categories or documents depending on the website configuration. The name of the menu is likely to be different from one site to another (News, Latest reports, etc).

    Good to know: even if documents or categories are displayed in the « News » part of the site, they are still visible elsewhere like all other documents or categories.
  • Categories / Sub-categories
  • Browsing through categories and sub-categories allows a guided navigation to the documents. You only have to click the proposed categories until you reach the documents. Some sites can enable a « search by category » feature that allows to search categories by typing a category name or other information.
  • Thesaurus
  • Some sites can enable search by browsing through the thesaurus. When enabled, this search is available by clicking the « Thesaurus » or « Keywords » menu in the navigation area. You can deploy a branch in the thesarus tree structure by clicking the arrow at the left of a keyword, you can click on a keyword to display documents that contains this keyword.
  • Document record
  • Each document has a document record (information sheet) that can be displayed by clicking the thumbnail image or the « Information » icon under the thumbnail in the contact sheet or list of documents.
    When you are in the information sheet page, you can click on the image to display it at a larger size, you can click on a keyword to start a new search (called « search by rebound »).

    Depending on the website settings, you can also display :
    - The categories to which the document belongs
    - The principal stakeholder or all stakeholders with the detailed rights information
    - The associated files that can be available for download
    - A download link to the principal file if authorized
    - The « cart » button to add the document to the cart
    - The « Send a link » button to send a link to the information sheet by email
    - Social networks buttons to allow sharing
    - For videos: a button to obtain the HTML « embed code »
  • Carts
  • Throughout your browsing and searches, you can add documents to a cart by dragging and dropping the thumbnail image onto the « cart tray » at the right of the window or you can click on the « cart » icon under the thumbnail.

    Once you cart is filled, you can click on the « See cart » button to access all possible operations that can be performed from a cart (download, order, send by email, share, send a download link). This list of operations can be different from one site to another depending on the settings and your user permissions.

    Good to know:
    - Carts are not available if you are browsing the site as a guest (non identified user)
    - The maximum number of documents that can be added to a cart depends on on the dabase settings
    - Each identified user can use up to 6 carts
    - It is possible to rename a cart
    - When carts are not available, you can still use a temporary single cart called « Selection ». You can add documents to this selection but it will be lost when closing the session or quitting the browser. If this is your case, you can create an account or ask an administrator to give you access to carts
  • Order from a cart
  • If available, click the « Order » button from the cart page. Fill in the order form. Take care to fill in all fields before submitting your order, accept the legal conditions of use (if required). Depending on your user permissions, you will receive the ordered documents in all or in part in the format determined by the choice of the administrator.

    The order and the retrieval of the delivered documents are recorded in the database, as are all actions of exporting or retrieval of documents.

    Good to know:
    - You can display all your orders by selecting the « My orders » item from the dropdown Account menu at the top right of the window.
  • Download from a cart
  • If this feature is enabled and if you have the required permissions, you will be able to download principal or associated files, one by one or many at once in a zip file.

    From the cart page, click the « Download » button.
    The download page can be different depending on the settings and your download permissions:
    - Standard download page with unitary and zip download links
    - Advanced download page, with the possibility to choose each file to be included in a zip
    In both cases, if you download many files at once, you will download a zip file including all the selected files and a PDF document summarizing the rights of use for every file, with any mandatory or other relevant information.

    All downloads are recorded in the database, as are all actions of exporting or retrieval of documents.
  • Send by email from a cart
  • Using this feature, you will be able to send documents added to your cart by email as a contact sheet or with the principal files attached (low resolution files for images). Select the type (contact sheet or files), fill in the form, accept the legal conditions of use (if required) and click the « Send your selection » button.

    If you do not have permissions to export some files, they will not be attached to the email, contact the website administrator in this case.

    All email sendings are recorded in the database, as are all actions of exporting or retrieval of documents.
  • Share documents from a cart
  • This feature allows identified users having the rights to export documents to share, during a period of their choice, a selection of documents with other identified users. All sharings are recorded in the database, as are all actions of exporting or retrieval of documents. By clicking the « Share » button, you will send a link by email. When the recipient of the email clicks on this link, he will be asked to enter his login and password to be able to access the site and see the shared documents as a contact sheet or list, then being free to add these documents to a cart if he wants to order, download or process all other possible actions.

    If you have permissions to bypass user rights, you will be able to choose the « User rights » from the three following options:

    - Do not bypass user rights
    Users will be able to only view documents they are normally allowed to. It is therefore possible that they can not view certain documents.

    - Bypass user rights for viewing
    Users will be able to view all shared documents, even those they would not normally have access to.

    - Bypass user rights for display and download
    Users will be able to view and download all shared documents, even those they would not normally have access to.

    Sharings are recorded in the database, as are all actions of exporting or retrieval of documents.
  • Send a download link from a cart
  • This feature allows identified users to send a download link to any person not having necessarily an account. By clicking the link, the recipient will download a zip file including all the selected files and a PDF document summarizing the rights of use for every file, with any mandatory or other relevant information.

    Sendings of download links are recorded in the database, as are all actions of exporting or retrieval of documents.
  • Subscribing to an area of interest
  • If this feature is enabled, you will be able to subscribe to an area of interest by performing a search and then clicking the « Subscribing to this area of interest » button located at the top right of the contact sheet or list of results. When new documents matching with the search criteria related to this area of interest are added to the database, depending on the frequency selected, you will receive an notification email.

    You can manage your subscriptions by selecting the « My subscriptions » item from the dropdown Account menu at the top right of the window.

    Good to know: An administrator or manager of the database has the possibility to subscribe other users or groups of users to one or more areas of interest. To manage these subscriptions, an administrator can select the « Subscription management » item from the dropdown Account menu at the top right of the window.