Speed vs Accuracy
FACT-Finder gives you a straightforward mechanism for balancing search speed and search result quality. This parameter takes the form of a simple numerical setting. The range runs from 1 to 9 and is proportional to search speed. Higher value → faster search.
On the lowest setting (1), the system searches very accurately, which takes a lot of time. On the highest setting (9) the system answers the queries very quickly, but the search is more superficial. The values in between reflect a varying degree of compromise between these two extremes. The table below shows the effects of the search speed setting:
Value | Phonetic search | Maximum number of search results | Full DB-Scan |
1 | Yes | unlimited | Yes |
2 | Yes | unlimited | Yes |
3 | Yes | 40000 | No |
4 | Yes | 20000 | No |
5 | Yes | 10000 | No |
6 | Yes | 7500 | No |
7 | Yes | 5000 | No |
8 | Yes | 3000 | No |
9 | No | 2000 | No |
Description of the table columns:
Value: Search speed value 1 = search precisely but slowly Search speed value 9 = search less precisely but very quickly
Phonetic search: Use the phonetic search algorithms – yes/no
Maximum number of search hits: Here you can set a value which reduces the amount of results after completing the search. If the search is capped to 10.000 via the search speed you can enter a smaller value here. FACT-Finder will then pick the best hits for the set amount.
Full database scan: When full database scan is disabled, FACT-Finder pre-selects a set of records to inspect more closely. With full DB scan enabled, all records in the database are examined. This increases the search time required in direct proportion to the size of the database.
Impact
This setting has a direct impact on the speed and quality of the search results. Setting the value to 1 returns very accurate results at a slow speed. Setting it to 9 is very fast but the results are not too precise.
How to change Settings
See Basic Settings → Search Algorithm.
Recommendation
By default, this setting is left at 5, which produces satisfactory results. If you are experiencing performance issues due to search database size, we recommend you try increasing the value of this parameter to 6. Increase the value any further and search results which only feature a partial match might deteriorate. Before increasing the value above 6, please test the search results for so called partial strings, e.g. “table” for also finding “dining-table”. If the results significantly deteriorate, you should reduce the value to 6 and contact our service desk.