Full-text search (FTS) support

Owned by Support Admin
Last updated: Aug 01, 2024
2 min read

Full-text search is SQL Server feature that eDiscovery can use to make text searches more efficient and quick.
For eDiscovery searches by text field, we use FTS for the following data:

  • content of text messages

  • content of meeting transcripts

Detailed explanation on installation of the feature in SQL Server: How to install full-text search on an existing database?

FTS Overview

Full Text Search is designed to perform advanced text queries on character-based data in SQL Server.

  • It creates full-text indexes on columns containing textual data

  • supports complex queries such as phrase searching, proximity searching, and weighted searches

  • can be configured to use various languages and their specific linguistic rules

  • and is optimized for searching large amounts of textual data quickly and efficiently.

Full-Text Search Stoplist

Full-Text Search (FTS) in SQL Server uses a stoplist to ignore certain common words (stopwords) during indexing and querying. These stopwords are words that are considered to be of little value in a search because they are common in the language and are not helpful in narrowing down search results. The specific stopwords can vary based on the language used.

Common Stopwords in English

Some common English stopwords that FTS might ignore include:

  • Articles: a, an, the

  • Conjunctions: and, but, or

  • Prepositions: in, on, at, by, with, about, against, between, into, through, during, before, after, above, below, to, from, up, down, in, out, on, off, over, under

  • Pronouns: I, me, you, he, him, she, her, it, we, us, they, them

  • Others: is, are, was, were, be, been, being, have, has, had, do, does, did, will, would, shall, should, can, could, may, might, must

More details on managing stoplists can be found here:
Configure & manage stopwords & stoplists for Full-Text Search - SQL Server