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How to Use Composer Search

This article is intended to help you efficiently search within Composer and better understand the design behind our search query. We'll walk through how to best use our main search bar, as well as drill down your search results using our sort and filter pane.

The Search Bar

From the Composer home screen, your main entry point into search is the top search bar. From this search bar, you can opt to search stories by term or ID using the top toggle. A search by ID looks for the exact story ID match of your input text, querying the field source.source_id.

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Troubleshooting Tip: If you ever encounter a search error where stories in Composer do not load, you can access and edit stories if you search by ID.

The main search bar queries the following properties:

  • content_elements.content - the body of the story

  • corrections.text - correction notes added to stories after they have been published

  • credits.by.name - author name

  • editor_note - text contained within editor notes

  • headlines.basic - headlines

  • label.basic.text - overlines

  • planning.budget_line - used for the newsroom to identify what the story is about, especially if a user is unfamiliar with the slug of a story and the headline or they do not yet exist. Newsroom use only.

  • promo_items.basic.description.basic - description of default thumbnail image

  • promo_items.basic.headlines.basic - headline for promo assets

  • promo_items.basic.subheadlines.basic - subheadline for promo assets

  • slug - story slug

  • subheadlines.basic - subheadlines

  • taxonomy.tags.text - keyword tags that describe a piece of content

When you run a search by term, Composer searches for your terms in the headline and body of the article, among other fields detailed below. When typing multiple terms in this search box, Composer treats the terms as an OR search. This means the results display every story that matches one of the typed words. For example, if you enter "breaking news", the results show stories that match both "breaking" and stories that match "news". Composer search does not currently support Boolean operators or wildcard searches.

Search Sort

You can sort and filter all content within Composer using the left pane. Note that you can use these filters independently of the top search bar, but when combined with searching by term in the top search bar you can very effectively narrow down your search results.

The Composer search sort and filters are sticky, meaning that we will remember your search parameters even if you navigate away or log out of Arc. You can always clear your filters by clicking "Reset filters" at the top of the pane.

Sort Order

"Sort by" gives you the option to reorder your results by created date, last updated date, publish date, display date, or relevance.

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Sort by Relevance

Sort by Relevance should be used in combination with a search by term. When you sort your search results by Relevance, there are four fields that are "boosted" in your search results, meaning that if our search query returns a keyword match in one of these fields, it will be prioritized at a higher ranking within your search results.

  1. Headlines (headlines.basic) - a search term hit in a headline will be prioritized above matches in all other fields

  2. Subheadlines (subheadlines.basic) - search term results for subheadlines are prioritized immediately after headlines

  3. Slugs (slug) - next our search will retrieve slug results matching your searched term

  4. Term contained within body of story (content_elements.content) - once we return prioritized results for headlines, subheadlines, and slugs, we return term matches contained within the body of your story

Relevance User Tips:

  • If you run a search by term and you are not finding results that match your query at the top of the search results list, try "Sort by Relevance" to bring the most relevant results to the top.

  • Use date range filters combined with Sort by Relevance to limit your results only to the most recent stories, or any other timeframe you desire.

Search Filters

Websites and Sections

Search by website or section. The websites filter dropdown includes any website where a story has been circulated. For example, if you have a single article that is circulated to five websites, that article should appear in Composer search if any of the five websites are selected from the website filter.

Time

Allows you to set a start date and end date to your search results. This range may then be filtered by Created, Published or Last Modified. Use the relative date buttons for a quick access to the recent past or next day.

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Filter and search a specific field

At the bottom of the filter pane, we give you the ability to filter within specific fields to drill down directly to the content you're looking for.

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Author Name - Look for articles from authors in your author service list or guest authors.

Headline - Only searches the headline field of the article.

Source - How the article was originally added to the publishing pipeline, whether through Composer, an ingested wire feed or another CMS in your pipeline.

Subtype - Filter by rendering template.

Show only published - Ability to hide unpublished content.

Workflow states - Filter by your custom workflow states by toggling them on or off. Note that in order for the Workflow states to appear, you must have the WebSked integration enabled. You can verify this setting within Composer Settings > WebSked.

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