Collaboration Search & Discovery: Universal Search Platform

Overview#

Intelligence analysts, fraud investigators, and operational planners all share the same frustration: knowing that a piece of information exists somewhere in the platform but not being able to find it quickly. The file might be in a workspace from six months ago. The relevant decision might be in a message thread from a different team. The policy document might be in the knowledge base under a title nobody expected. Universal search eliminates the hunt.

The Search & Discovery module provides a single search interface that spans all collaboration content: files, messages, tasks, calendar events, and knowledge base articles. Intelligent relevance ranking and personalised results surface the most useful content for the person asking, taking into account their role, team membership, recent activity, and the context they are searching from. For organisations where information is spread across workspaces, partner-scoped channels, and multiple content types, universal search is the foundation of effective knowledge retrieval.

Key Features#

• Universal Search: Search across all collaboration content types, including files, messages, documents, tasks, calendar events, and knowledge base articles, from a single unified interface.
• Intelligent Relevance Ranking: Results are ranked based on relevance, recency, content quality, and personalised factors such as team membership, recent activity, and interaction history.
• Advanced Filters: Refine search results by content type, date range, author, team, project, workspace, and other metadata attributes for precise discovery.
• Content Preview: View inline previews of search results including document excerpts, message context, file thumbnails, and task details without opening each item.
• Saved Searches: Save frequently used search queries for one-click access and optional automatic notification when new matching content appears.
• Recent and Suggested: Quick access to recently viewed content and intelligent suggestions based on current context, active projects, and collaboration patterns.
• Federated Search: Search extends across connected third-party applications, providing results from the full ecosystem of integrated tools in a unified result set.
• Natural Language Queries: Support for conversational search queries that interpret user intent and context alongside traditional keyword-based and Boolean searches.
• Search Analytics: Aggregate search data reveals what information people look for most often, which queries yield poor results, and where content gaps exist.
• Contextual Search: Search initiated from within a workspace, project, or channel automatically scopes results to the relevant context while allowing expansion to organisation-wide search.

Use Cases#

Cross-Tool Content Discovery#

Analysts find information stored in any collaboration tool without needing to know where it was originally created or shared. This is particularly valuable in multi-agency environments where content may have been contributed by partners, shared through external portals, or imported from legacy systems.

Knowledge Retrieval#

Team members quickly locate institutional knowledge, past decisions, reference materials, and precedent information through natural language queries, improving decision-making quality and reducing repeated questions to colleagues.

Project Context Assembly#

When joining a new investigation or preparing for a briefing, analysts search for all related content across tools to quickly assemble relevant context, background materials, and current status information in one consolidated view.

Content Audit and Governance#

Administrators search for content matching specific criteria to support governance activities such as access reviews, content classification, sensitive data identification, and compliance verification across the platform.

Onboarding and Self-Service#

New team members use search to find answers to common questions, locate relevant documentation, and discover existing resources without needing to know the organisational structure of content across tools.

Workflows#

Quick Search#

1. Enter a query in the universal search bar accessible from any page in the platform.
2. Review results ranked by relevance with content type indicators, previews, and source attribution.
3. Apply filters to narrow results by content type, date, author, team, or other attributes.
4. Open the desired result directly from the search interface with full context.
5. Optionally save the search for future reuse or set up a notification for new matching content.

Saved Search Monitoring#

1. Construct a search query for content of ongoing interest, such as a project name or topic.
2. Save the search with an optional notification trigger for new matching content.
3. Receive alerts when new content matching the saved search criteria is created or modified.
4. Review new matches from the saved search dashboard and take action as needed.

Content Gap Identification#

1. Review search analytics to identify queries that produce few or no relevant results.
2. Analyse query patterns to understand what information users are looking for but not finding.
3. Prioritise content creation to address the most impactful gaps.
4. Monitor search effectiveness improvement as new content is published.

Integration#

• Programmable API Access: Execute searches and retrieve results programmatically for integration with custom portals, external applications, and automated content discovery workflows.
• Connected Applications: Search results include content from integrated third-party applications for comprehensive cross-platform discovery.
• Browser and Desktop: Access universal search from browser extensions and desktop applications for quick lookups without switching context to the collaboration platform.
• Analytics Platforms: Feed search usage data into analytics dashboards for understanding information needs, content effectiveness, and knowledge management priorities.

Open Standards#

• GraphQL (June 2018 specification): All search and discovery queries, mutations, and index-management operations are exposed through a typed GraphQL API, enabling clients to request exactly the fields they need across unified result sets.
• BM25 (Okapi BM25, Robertson et al.): Full-text relevance scoring is implemented using PostgreSQL ts_rank with BM25-style term-frequency weighting, fused with dense vector results via Reciprocal Rank Fusion to produce ranked result sets.
• OpenAPI 3.1 (OAI Specification): The platform publishes a curated external API contract at the /.well-known/openapi.json endpoint, enabling federated search integrators and partner tooling to discover the search API surface without authentication.
• RFC 8615 (Well-Known URIs): API discovery endpoints are served under the /.well-known/ path hierarchy, providing a standards-compliant location for partner tooling to locate the OpenAPI bundle and schema catalogue.
• RFC 9727 (API Catalog): A link-set document is served at /.well-known/api-catalog, providing machine-readable discovery of the available API entry points for automated integration and federated search configuration.
• OAuth 2.0 / JWT (RFC 6749 / RFC 7519): Access to tenant-scoped saved-search endpoints and the per-tenant schema catalogue is gated by Bearer tokens; scoped permissions (e.g. argus:discovery:read) control visibility per clearance level.
• ISO 8601 / RFC 3339: All timestamps on search results, indexing jobs, saved searches, and analytics events are serialised in ISO 8601 format, ensuring interoperability with external analytics platforms and audit consumers.
• WebSocket (RFC 6455): Discovery job progress and index-update events are broadcast to connected clients over WebSocket, enabling real-time feedback in the search interface without polling.

Last Reviewed: 2026-02-23 Last Updated: 2026-04-14