search
How to Use Boolean Search to Find Contacts in Your Database

Last Updated:

With Beamery's Boolean search option, you can identify the right candidates more easily and more holistically - bolstering traditional data points with signals of intent, interest, and interaction.


Table of Contents

Creating a Boolean String
Using Boolean Search With and Without Operators
Combining Boolean Search with Beamery Filters
Use Cases and Snippets for Boolean Search Smart Search Ranking: How Your Search Results are Displayed


Creating a Boolean String

To use Boolean search, navigate to the CRM module and open the filters panel. At the top of the panel, click into the Boolean Search bar. 

Boolean Search2.png

To write your Boolean string, click on the query text field below the Enable Boolean option. This will trigger a pop-up window where you can compose your query.

Boolean Search3.png

You have the option to compose your own Boolean search snippet from scratch or select a previous Boolean search you have used. 

When creating a Boolean Search string, the Boolean operators available to you are:

  • OR 
    • Placing this operator between key terms means you want to see contacts with either or any of the terms included.
    • Example: Senior OR Manager OR Director
  • AND 
    • Placing this operator between key terms means you want to see contacts with both or all of the terms included.
    • Example: Senior AND Engineer AND Software
  • NOT:
    • Placing a word next to this operator means you do not want to see contacts who have that key term.
    • Example: NOT: junior 
  • (parentheses/brackets)
    • These are used to group related key terms together with their operators.
    • Example: (engineer OR developer) AND (backend OR back-end)
  • "quotation/speech marks"
    • These are used to group words that make up a single required phrase, rather than separate terms searched individually.
    • Example: "software engineer" OR "software developer"

You can use combinations of these operators to create Boolean strings that will return a very specific group of contacts within the database.

Within the pop-up window, you will also see a list of recently used Boolean strings which you can click to add to your current string. You can use this string as is, or add more search terms and operators.

You also have the option to determine which types of candidate information to apply the search string to.

  • Everything: Selecting Everything searches the following information on the profile: 
    • Contact name
    • Summary
    • Emails and phone numbers
    • Location - Address, City, Country Code, Zip Code
    • Experience - Company Name and Role
    • Education - School Name and Degree
    • Profile Tags & Global Tags
    • Attachments text
  • Attachments: searches only data within attachments, does not search any other information held on the profile
  • Profile: searches the following data within the profile, excluding attachments:
    • Contact name
    • Summary
    • Emails and phone numbers
    • Location - Address, City, Country Code, Zip Code
    • Experience - Company Name and Role
    • Education - School Name and Degree
    • Profile Tags & Global Tags

Once you have finalized your Boolean string, click Submit. Your string will appear at the top of the filters panel, within the query text box. To make any changes to your Boolean string, simply click on the query text box.


Using Boolean Search With and Without Operators

Creating Boolean Searches with and without operators will yield different search results. Based on what you are looking for, use the following to understand how best to build your search queries. 

 

Search Results
Nonprofit Operations Manager Any profiles containing Nonprofit and Operations and Manager on any of the above fields in any order
Nonprofit AND "Operations Manager" Any profiles containing Nonprofit and the exact phrase Operations Manager
"Nonprofit Operations Manager" Any profiles containing the exact phrase Nonprofit Operations Manager

 


Combining Boolean Search with Beamery Filters

After you have used a Boolean search string as above, you can combine this with the filters available to you in Beamery's filter panel. 

To do this, you simply need to minimize the Boolean Search dropdown and apply any additional filters as normal.

The filters will be used in combination with your Boolean search string to search your database. For example, if you wanted to find candidates in a specific Pool that match your Boolean search string, you can add a filter for a Pool in addition to using Boolean search. 

Also, if you would like to reuse a combination of Boolean and Bamery filters, you can save Boolean search strings and Beamery filters once you have the combination configured. To save the filters and Boolean string you currently have applied, click the vertical ellipsis button above the filter panel, choose Save as... from the drop down menu, and name your saved filter.

 


Use Cases and Snippets for Boolean Search

The table below provides examples of the types of searches you can perform.

Use case Search Snippet
Find Manager or Lead Manager OR Lead
Find Manager or Lead from a top tier university (Manager OR Lead) AND ("University of Oxford" OR "University of California")
Find Manager or Lead from a top tier university tagged with Javascript (Manager OR Lead) AND ("University of Oxford" OR "University of California") AND javascript
Find Manager or Lead from a top tier university tagged with Javascript, in San Francisco but not in London (Manager OR Lead) AND ("University of Oxford" OR "University of California") AND javascript AND "San Francisco" NOT:London
Find Manager or Lead from a top tier university tagged with Javascript, who lives within a 10 mile radius of London, is assigned to a specific user and is in the pool "VP Engineering" (Manager OR Lead) AND ("University of Oxford" OR "University of California") AND javascript

Then filter for:
Radius Search IS 'London' and 10 mile radius
AND 'Assigned to' IS [username]
AND Pools IS [VP Engineering]
Find a Manager or Director who does not work at a specific organization (Manager OR Director) NOT:"Organization Name"

 


Smart Search Ranking: How Your Search Results are Displayed

After you run a Boolean search in Beamery, from the People Grid, you will see the candidates who have matched with your search. At the top of this screen, there is a switch you can click to toggle smart search ranking on or off. This will be set to on by default.

1613651445536-ioU.png

With smart search ranking switched on, the results of your Boolean search will be sorted in order of relevance, meaning the candidate at the top of the list has the strongest match with the search terms that you used. This will save you the time of manually reviewing profiles to determine who is most relevant to your search. 

The relevance of a profile is calculated through an algorithm that applies ‘weightings’ to each search result for a Boolean search, based on factors such as how frequently that term appears and where it appears in the profile.