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Quick Summary: Search lets users find people, training, skills, careers, and certifications across your organization. Admins control which roles have access to search and how much of the organization they can see through granular, role-based permissions.

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Overview

Search is a core navigation tool that enables employees, managers, and admins to explore your organization’s talent, training resources, and skills data. Depending on how permissions are configured, users can search for colleagues by skill, find training courses, browse careers, or locate certification holders — all from a single search interface. Because Search surfaces potentially sensitive organizational data, it is fully permission-gated. Admins configure exactly what each security group can search for and how broadly they can see results. For example, managers might only see people within their own chain of command, while admins have unrestricted access. Search is accessible from the left sidebar and is available to any role that has been granted search access by an admin.

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How Search Works

When users open Search, they can:
  • Search by keyword — Enter any text to search across multiple content types simultaneously
  • Filter by type — Use the type tabs to scope results to People, Training, Skills, Career, or Certifications, or view All results together
  • Apply structured filters — Narrow results by organizational structure (business unit, department, team, location) as well as skill grades, career levels, skill flags, certifications, and document content
  • Toggle match mode — Choose Match All to require every filter to apply, or Match Any to return results that match at least one
  • View recent searches — Previously run searches are stored locally for quick re-use
The filters and content types visible to each user depend on the permissions configured for their security group. A user who does not have People Search access will only see training, skill, and career results — not colleagues.

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Configuring Search Permissions

Search permissions are managed from Company > Settings > Search Permission. This page displays a permission matrix with one column per security group and one row per permission type. Each cell can be independently configured. To open Search Permissions:
  1. Navigate to Settings from the main menu
  2. Select Search Permissions from the settings list
  3. The Search Permissions matrix will load, showing all security groups and configurable permission rows

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Security Groups

Permissions are configured independently for each of the four security groups:

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Permission Reference

Controls whether the search feature appears in the sidebar at all for a given role.
  • Enabled (checkbox checked): The Search button appears in the left navigation
  • Disabled (checkbox unchecked): Search is completely hidden from that role
Search is always enabled for Admins and cannot be turned off.

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People Search Access

Controls the scope of people a user can find when searching for colleagues. This is the most impactful permission setting.
Full Access users always have Full Access to people search. This setting cannot be changed for the Full Access security group.
When People Search Access is set to No Access, all filter permissions below it are automatically forced to No Access as well, and the default search mode is set to Training. These changes take effect immediately and cannot be overridden individually while People Search is disabled.

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Minimum to Appear in Results

This setting only appears when People Search Access is set to Above Grade for the Employee or Manager role. It defines the minimum skill grade a person must hold to appear in skill-based search results for that role.
The Minimum to Appear in Results selector requires at least one grading rubric to be configured in your organization before it can be set. If no grading rubrics exist, configure them first before using the Above Grade access level.

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Filter Permissions

The following filters can each be independently configured per security group. Each accepts one of three values:
When People Search Access is set to Chain of Command for a security group, all filter permissions for that group are automatically limited to No Access or Chain of Command only. Full Access is not available for any filter when the people search scope is chain-of-command.
Skill Grades Filter Allows users to filter search results by the proficiency grade level of a skill. Useful for finding employees who have achieved a specific grade in a skill. Search Based on Careers Allows users to filter or search by career assignments — finding colleagues who currently hold, or have previously held, a particular career. Career Level Filter Allows users to filter search results by career level (e.g., Entry, Mid, Senior). Skill Flags Filter Allows users to filter search results by flags that have been applied to skills on employee profiles (e.g., Endorsed, Flagged for Review). Survey Response Filter Allows users to filter search results based on employees’ survey responses. This filter only appears if the Surveys feature is enabled for your organization. Search Based on Certifications Allows users to search for employees by certification — finding who holds a specific certification or whose certification is expiring. Search Within User Files Allows users to search within documents that employees have uploaded to their profiles.

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Default Search Mode

Controls which content type is active by default when a user opens Search. Options are People (opens to the People tab) or Training (opens to the Training tab).
This setting is only configurable by Admins. When People Search Access is set to No Access for a role, the default search mode is automatically set to Training for that role.

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Common Questions

The Search feature is hidden entirely when Enable Search is unchecked for that user’s security group. Navigate to Company > Settings > Search Permission and enable the checkbox for the relevant group.
Chain of Command limits results to people within the searching user’s reporting hierarchy — their direct reports, their reports’ reports, and so on. Full Access returns results across the entire organization with no scoping.
Yes. People Search Access and each filter permission are set independently. A manager can have Full Access for people search while individual filters like Skill Flags or Documents are set to No Access or Chain of Command.
Two situations cause filter dropdowns to become read-only: (1) People Search Access is set to No Access — all filters are forced to No Access automatically, and (2) People Search Access is set to Chain of Command — filters are limited to No Access or Chain of Command; Full Access is not available.
All filter permissions for that group are immediately forced to No Access, and the Default Search Mode is set to Training. Users in that group can still access Search (if enabled), but they will only see training, skill, career, and certification content — not other people.
No. The Above Grade access level only applies when a user is searching by skills. Name-based searches are not affected by the minimum grade threshold.
No. Admin search access is always fully enabled and cannot be restricted through the Search Permissions configuration.

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Related Articles

Surveys

Configure surveys, whose responses can be used as a search filter

Skill Flags

Configure the skill flags that appear as search filter options

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Need Help?

If you run into any issues or have questions, reach out to your organization’s SkillsDB administrator or contact SkillsDB Support.