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Overview

The Search page is SkillsDB’s organization-wide discovery tool. It lets you search across people, skills, training resources, careers, and certifications simultaneously, then narrow results with targeted filters to find exactly who or what you need. Search is built for situations where you already know what you’re looking for — a subject matter expert in a particular skill, someone with a specific certification, or a career path that aligns with a set of competencies. Instead of browsing through multiple sections of the product, you can describe the criteria and let Search surface matching results ranked by relevance. The Search page is accessible to all users, though administrators can restrict access to people search features based on your organization’s settings. All users can search skills, training, careers, and certifications. Access to people search depends on your organization’s configuration.

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Navigating to Search

Select Search from the left sidebar. The Search page is located at the top level of SkillsDB navigation.

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Performing a Basic Search

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Searching by keyword

Use the search input to find results by name or keyword across all resource types.

1. Select the search input at the top of the page (placeholder text reads “Search people, training and more…”).
2. Type a keyword — for example, a skill name, a person’s name, or a training course title.
3. SkillsDB displays a suggestion dropdown after you type one or more characters.
4. Select a suggestion from the dropdown, or press Enter to run a broad text search.

When you select a suggestion, SkillsDB adds it as a structured filter tag. Structured filters produce more precise results than plain text searches because they match against specific database records rather than general text.

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Using type filters

By default, Search returns results across all resource types (All). Use the type filter buttons to limit results to one category: Select a type filter button to scope your search. The active filter is highlighted. Select the active filter again to return to All.

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Adding Filters

Filters are the primary way to find experts and narrow results. SkillsDB supports several types of filters that can be combined.

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Adding a skill or career filter

To find people who have a specific skill or who are assigned to a particular career:

1. Select the search input and type a skill or career name.
2. Select the matching skill or career from the suggestion dropdown.
3. SkillsDB adds a filter tag and updates the results to show matching people.

You can add multiple skill or career filters. Use the Match all / Match any toggle to control how multiple filters interact (see Matching mode below).

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Adding an org structure filter

Org structure filters let you narrow results by organizational attributes such as department, location, or team. These filters appear as additional dropdowns below the main search input when active. To add an org structure filter:

1. Run a search that returns people results (use People scope or add a skill/career filter).
2. Select the search input and type or scroll to find an org attribute — for example, Department.
3. Select the org attribute from the suggestion dropdown.
4. In the org filter that appears, select one or more values from the dropdown (for example, choose specific department names).

Available org structure filters include:

• Business Unit, Division, Department, Team
• Country, State, City, Site, Location
• Shift, Business Region

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Adding a certification filter

To find employees with a specific certification:

1. Set the scope to Certifications or All.
2. Type a certification name in the search input and select it from the suggestions.
3. SkillsDB returns matching employees alongside certification status information.

When the scope is set to Certifications, use the Display menu to toggle between two views:

• Certifications — shows the certification catalog
• Employee Certifications — shows individual employees’ certification records, including status and expiration

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Using Sub-filters

Sub-filters refine an individual filter tag with additional criteria. For example, when searching for people with a skill, sub-filters let you require that those people hold an Expert flag for that skill, meet a minimum proficiency grade, or completed training within a specific time period.

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Adding sub-filters to a skill filter

1. Add a skill as a filter (see Adding a skill filter).
2. Select the filter icon on the skill filter tag.
3. The sub-filters panel opens with the following options:

4. Select your desired sub-filter values and close the panel. Results update automatically.

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Adding sub-filters to a people filter

When searching for people directly, sub-filters include:

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Matching Mode

When you apply multiple filters, the Match all / Match any toggle controls how SkillsDB combines them:

• Match all — Returns results that satisfy every filter (AND logic). Use this when you need people who meet all criteria simultaneously.
• Match any — Returns results that satisfy at least one filter (OR logic). Use this when you want a broader pool of results.

Select the Match all or Match any button in the search toolbar to switch between modes. The active mode is highlighted. Example: If you add filters for “Python” and “Machine Learning”:

• Match all returns people who have both Python and Machine Learning.
• Match any returns people who have either Python or Machine Learning (or both).

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Display Settings

Select the Display button (top right of the search toolbar) to access display options. Available options depend on the active scope:

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People scope display options

When your organization has document search enabled, matching documents may appear alongside people results in the criteria tags. A Survey Responses button appears in the toolbar when the People scope is active, allowing you to search across survey response data.

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Certifications scope display options

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Understanding Search Results

Search results appear in a table with the following columns: When the scope is set to All, results are organized into collapsible groups by type: People, Training, Skills, Careers, Certifications, and Employee Certifications.

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Navigating to a result

Select any row in the results table to navigate to the detail page for that record:

• People → opens the person’s full profile
• Skills → opens the skill detail page in the Library
• Training → opens the training resource in the Library
• Careers → opens the career detail page
• Certifications → opens the certification in the Library
• Employee Certifications → opens the person’s profile

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Clearing and Resetting Filters

To remove a single filter, select the x on the filter tag. To remove all filters at once, select the Clear button in the search toolbar. If your search returns no results, SkillsDB displays “Your search or filters are a bit too specific.” Select Reset Filters to clear all active filters and start over.

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Common Questions

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Related Articles

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