OfficerSearch - Search Functionality

[harshad_ranganathan]

Hi,

We are currently using XML Gateway for OfficerSearch. Current implementation supports following request parameters :

1. Lastname
2. Firstname

But REST API supports only one query param.

How does the search work in new REST API ?

Eg)

XMLGateway

LastName - RENDY
FirstName - ELIZABETH

REST API

q - RENDY ELIZABETH

Will ‘RENDY’ be treated as LastName ? How the data is actually stored in Elasticsearch ? As a full name or split up as ‘Lastname’ and ‘FirstName’ ?

Also the search result which is returned has result as

'"title": "Elizabeth PEABODY"

Does it return ‘Lastname FirstName’ format (or) ‘FirstName Lastname’ ?

Thanks

[csmith]

The API searching is more intelligent than the XMLGateway, and we have recently done a large amount of tuning to the search matching. This improved searching will be first used in the Disqualified Directors, due for release the week of the 25th, and will be introduced into officer search a little later:

New Disqualified Officer functionality

During the week commencing 25th January 2016 we will be introducing new functionality to the API and Web Service. This functionality will introduce disqualified officers to CHS and the ability to search and view information on them. We have also improved the searching functionality for disqualifications and will be rolling this out to Officer and Company searching in the future. Early sight of the resource representations, are shown below:- DisqualifiedOfficerSearch resource. { "items…

Both the existing search and the improved search used on disqualified directors expect the “name” to be typed in as it would be written, so in your case ELIZABETH RENDY. The search results are returned in the same left-to-right order: “forename [othernames] lastname”:

{
    "title": "Elizabeth RENDY"
}

The current searching matches all the words in your search query, and produces results based on relevance. If records match with the words in the same order as the query, then it is deemed more relevant. It’s good, but could be better.

The improved search algorithm used on disqualified directors is much more intelligent and predictive, and produces exceptional results - we are really proud of it, and look forward to rolling that out to officer searching in the near future. When the disqualified directors search is released, you will be able to do a search result comparison yourself, to see the difference.

Hope that helps!

[harshad_ranganathan]

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

May I know why the Officer Details functionality in XML Gateway is being offered as two separate functionalities namely officer appointments and officer disqualifications instead of a single API in the REST.

Thanks

[hywel_bromby]

Also wondering why a flag on the officer search result would not cover this…

[weijian]

Hello,

I am finding that using the q syntax returns too many invalid results.

It returns all matches of EITHER first or last name. I would think it should only return matches that have SAME first and last ?

Is there a way to support exact FIRST/LAST name matches?

thanks

[mfairhurst]

@weijian

We do not provide functionality to support exact first/name matching. The searching provided is based on relevance so we would expect the most relevant to be returned in priority order, so you can cycle through the results giving you the flexibility to develop to your user need.

Thanks,

@mfairhurst