Discover 25.2
Discover Help

# Set up an Analysis

The Analysis tab is where you generate queries and analyze the content in your system. It has several available visualizations to allow you to view your data in the ways that make most sense, and you can explore these visualizations to expand on connections and find the details that you need. You can then use the selection mode to save content to your notebook (see Use the Notebook).

## Choose Your Layout and Visualizations

When you click the Analysis window, first you need to choose your layout and visualizations.

You can choose one, two, or four panel layouts. The following visualizations are available:

- Connectivity - Displays a connectivity diagram for your matching content. This diagram connects topics to one another, topics to users, and users to users, to show you the relationships between parts of your data.

- List View - Displays a simple list of the items that return in your query, for example a list of documents.

- Geo Map - Displays a map that shows the locations found in your data.

- Timeline - Displays a timeline view of your data, showing when events happen in relation to one another. For example, it might show when particular user posted messages about a particular topic.

- Topic Map - Displays a topic map for the items that return in your query. The topic map extracts the most important topics from the matching content, so you can drill down into more specific topics related to your area of interest.

To choose your layout and visualizations

1. Click your analysis tab.

   TIP: When you first log in, Analysis #1 is available automatically. To create a new analysis tab, click the plus sign (+) next to Analysis #1 and click New Analysis.

2. On the Select a layout screen, click the image for the layout that you want to use (one, two, or four panels).

   The Visualizations page opens.

3. In the first panel, click the visualization that you want to use for that panel.

   The panel is populated with your visualization. If you have not yet added any search information, the visualization is empty.

   If you have more than one visualization panel, the interface highlights the next panel.

4. Repeat the selection process for each of your panels.

## Build Your Query

The query builder walks you through setting up a detailed search to allow you to sift through your data and find the exact information that you need.

Each step in the query builder adds particular details or filters to your search. When you apply these changes, Discover populates your visualizations with updated data, according to your query.

The following steps are available:

- Search - Text-based search. This step uses Knowledge Discovery conceptual search to restrict results by using search terms and phrases. See Search.

- Parametric - Also known as filtering. This step restricts your results to those that contain particular values in special data field. That is, it filters a result according to text or numerical metadata rather than the main content. See Parametric Search.

- Date Time - This step restricts your results to those with a particular date or a date within a range. See Date Time Search.

- Geographical - This step restricts your results to those that contain a particular location, or a location within a region. See Geographical Search.

- Expand - This step allows you to expand your results according to particular criteria. For example, after you have restricted your search to a particular set of results, you might want to find new results that are related to this initial set, to expand and investigate additional connections. See Expand Search.

You can use these steps in any order, and different orders might give you different results. You can also use the steps more than once in a particular query. For example, you might apply a date restriction to a broad text search, and then apply a further text restriction.

To build a query

1. Click the icon for the first step that you want to include.

2. Complete the details for that step. For help with how to construct these query steps, see the following sections.

3. (Optional) Click Apply to update the visualizations with results for the step that you have just added.

4. Click the icon for the next step to add.

5. Complete the details for the next part of your search. Optionally click Apply to update the results visualizations.

6. Continue adding steps until you are finished.

7. Click Apply to view the final visualizations for your query.

The following sections go into more detail about each of the steps in the query builder.

### Search

To use conceptual search, you type a word or phrase into the text box and click or press `ENTER`.

Discover uses Knowledge Discovery conceptual search to find results that match your search terms. Conceptual search means that Knowledge Discovery does not only find your exact search terms, but it can also use conceptually similar terms. In simple cases, it uses linguistic similarity. For example, if you search for help it finds results that contain the word help, helping, helped, and so on. Depending on your system configuration, it might also find synonymous terms, or fuzzy spelling matches.

You can apply multiple search terms and phrases, by typing each term or phrase into the text box and clicking after each term.

### Parametric Search

To use parametric search, click the checkbox for each filter that you want to include.

To search for filters in a long list, type a search term in the text box and click or press `ENTER`.

The parametric values you can see depend on the results of your earlier search steps. For example, if you run a conceptual search for a particular name, the parametric filters in the list are only the values found in the results of that search. The number next to each filter shows how many results have the filter value.

Some filters have nested values, and you can select different options to display results that contain the parent field, or that contain particular values in that field.

You can use the parametric search at any stage in your query, but OpenText usually recommends that you use a conceptual search to narrow the search first, especially if your index contains a lot of parametric values.

### Date Time Search

To use date time search, click one of the pre-defined time filters, or click Custom to define your own date or time range.

When you click Custom, a calendar date picker opens, and you can type or select the date range that you are interested in. To add a time range, click Time Range to display the time range selector. You can type or select times, including time zones.

### Geographical Search

To use geographical search, you can either type the name of a location, or draw a region on a map.

To name a location, type the location in the search box and click or press `ENTER`.

To draw a region, click to open the map. The following table describes the tools that you can use to draw and edit your regions.

| Draw a polygon. This option defines a region with any number of straight sides. For example, you might follow country boundaries. Click points on the map to define each vertex of your polygon, and click the start point to close the region and complete the polygon.
| Draw a circle. Click and drag on the map to create a circle with the required radius.
| Edit the layers. This option allows you to modify items that you have already added to the map. Each element that you can modify has a white square. Click the centre of a circle to move it. Drag the square at the outside of a circle to change the radius. Click a vertex of a polygon to delete it. Click the transparent square on the edge of your polygon to add a new vertex. Drag a vertex of a polygon to move it and reshape the polygon. When you have finished making changes, click Save. To delete your changes and return to the previous state, click Delete.
| Delete a region. Click the region that you want to delete, or click Clear All to delete all regions. Click Save to save your changes. To cancel your changes and restore the deleted regions, click Cancel.

In the map, click Apply to apply your changes to the geographical search. Applying changes adds any new regions, or makes any other changes, such as modifying or removing regions.

### Expand Search

To expand your query, select either Links or Concepts from the menu.

- Links expands your query by using direct links between results. For example, it might connect different user accounts who are linked to a particular post (for example, users who replied to a result post), or other results that link to the original (for example citations, or other posts that link to the original result).

  When you click the Links option, an additional Times selection box is displayed, so that you can select how far to follow the links. A value of 1 follows the links one step from each of your results. A value of 2 follows the links from linked documents, and so on.

- Concepts expands your query by matching concepts that are related to the concepts in your original result set. For example, if your original search for cookies returns documents that also contain the concepts cakes, biscuits and baking, expanding the concepts returns results that include cakes, biscuits and baking (but not necessarily cookies).

  Your system configuration determines how many related concepts return in this step.

Search expansion allows you to investigate the connections between results that match your original search and other results that might be of interest. When you have an interesting set of results, you can expand the query to find links that might provide additional insight into the query.

After you apply an expansion, you might then want to add additional search steps to restrict the query again and narrow down your expanded results.

Copyright 2021-2025 Open Text
Version 25.2 | Last updated April 2025

Send documentation feedback

Close

Send documentation feedback

To send feedback using your default email client, open an email window.

Otherwise, send your feedback and the information below to MFI-swpdl.idoldocsfeedback@opentext.com.

We appreciate your feedback!

Product: Knowledge Discovery Discover 25.2

Topic Title: Set up an Analysis