Information is useless if nobody can find it. Users waste time searching for it or, more likely, spend time and resources recreating work that has already been done. SharePoint addresses this key issue.

A corporate search portal takes the wealth of information, data and expertise within an organisation and provides a single gateway to that information. SharePoint gathers information from multiple content sources, indexes it and makes it searchable through the portal. This includes information contained in any SharePoint sites in the organisation and other content sources such as Web sites, file shares, Microsoft Exchange public folders and SharePoint workspaces. You can customise the searching and indexing capability to fit the needs and infrastructure of your organisation, and you can extend the searching and indexing capability to include new file types and content sources. SharePoint can index millions of items.

• Search your content sources securely from within a browser or from client programs that are compatible with SharePoint Products and Technologies, such as Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2003 – or, of course the new Office 2007.
• Limit the scope of searches so that they search only relevant information sources, providing you with faster, easier-to-read results.
• Include areas and Best Bets in your search results, which can help you find relevant content faster. Search results can also include relevant people, allowing you to locate subject matter experts.
• More efficiently index content by using the thesaurus and word breaker to identify different words that may have similar meanings, such as compound words and acronyms.

The end result is an extremely powerful, high-performance search index that is easy and efficient to use.

You can also enhance your searching by using tools from one of our partners; Concept Searching. Their system uses a unique and intelligent search system which analyses both the words being searched and the meaning of those words and phrases. This allows a higher degree of accuracy in the return of relevant data for the user. It also incorporates the IPSV (Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary) which means that local authorities and government bodies can use the software to categorise documents using their own specific standards – which may be further customised for each site.