Search returns nothing
Search matches specific fields, not whole conversations. A conversation is matched on its subject and its summary; a call on the caller's name, the two numbers and its summary. A word that appears only inside a message body will not be found, however certain you are that you read it there.
What is actually searched#
| Screen | Matched | Not matched |
|---|---|---|
| Conversations | The thread's subject and its summary | Message bodies, attachments, addresses |
| Calls | The caller's name, the number called from, the number called, and the call summary | The transcript itself |
That is a deliberate boundary rather than an oversight — matching summaries keeps the query cheap and flat as a workspace grows — but it does mean the mental model 'search finds any word I remember' is wrong here. Search for what a subject line or a summary would say, not for a phrase from the middle of a message.
How your term is treated#
- Surrounding spaces are trimmed, and matching is case-insensitive.
- The term is matched as a fragment anywhere in the field, so a partial word finds a longer one.
- A per-cent sign or an underscore inside your term behaves as a wildcard, not as the character itself. Searching for a string containing one will match more than you expect, and searching for the character on its own matches nearly everything.
- There is no phrase operator, no quoting and no boolean syntax. Two words are one fragment, so they must appear together in that order.
Results are a page, not a set#
The list comes back most recent first and stops at the page limit. A match that is older than the page you are looking at is not shown, and no error says so — this is the same shape as the counting defects documented elsewhere, where a number computed from a slice was correct until the business outgrew the slice. Narrow with the folder or the date rather than paging blindly.
The counts on the strip beside the list are computed by their own queries. When a count and a searched list disagree, they are answering different questions rather than contradicting each other.
What Connect completed#
The query ran and returned every row that matched the fields it searches, within the page limit and within your workspace. Isolation applied normally, so a result from another workspace could not be returned even if it matched. Nothing was hidden by a permission at this level: an empty result here means no match in those fields, not an authorisation refusal.
What Connect did not complete#
It did not search message bodies or call transcripts, and it did not tell you that. It also did not warn that your term contained a wildcard character, or that the match you wanted is older than the page. Each of those is a silent narrowing rather than a visible one, which is why an empty result feels like a fault when it is a boundary.
What you can do#
Search for a subject word or the person's name instead of a phrase from the message.
Result You are now searching a field that is actually matched.
For a call, search the number rather than the person.
Result Both numbers are matched, and a number is stable in a way a name recorded during a call is not.
Clear the folder, the status and any date filter before deciding the term is at fault.
Result A term that works everywhere and fails in one folder is telling you about the folder.
If you know the person, open them instead of searching.
Result One person's whole history across every channel is one view, and it does not depend on remembering the right word.
What an administrator can do#
- Check whether the record has a summary at all. A missing summary removes one of the two fields the search relies on, and short calls have none by design.
- Check whether the record is in the workspace the person is searching. Cross-workspace results are impossible by construction, so a person in the wrong workspace will search successfully and find nothing forever.
- Where a term legitimately contains a wildcard character, expect the result set to widen rather than to fail — that is the direction the behaviour goes in.
When to escalate#
Escalate when a record can be opened directly, contains the term in a field the table above says is matched, and still does not appear. That is a defect rather than a boundary. Include the term exactly as typed, since a character that behaves as a wildcard is invisible in a paraphrase.
Questions#
Can I search inside message bodies at all?
Not from the list screens. Open the person or the conversation and read the thread, or ask the Assistant, which has read-only tools for finding and reading threads and drafts rather than a single text index.
Why does searching for one letter return almost everything?
Because the term is matched as a fragment anywhere in the field. One letter is a fragment of nearly every subject line, and a wildcard character is a fragment of all of them.
Is the documentation search the same thing?
No, and the difference is worth knowing: the public documentation has its own search over the published corpus, with filters for kind, status and channel and a result limit between 1 and 25. It searches pages, never your workspace.