Knowledge Base Search

Overview#

The Knowledge Base includes a built-in full-text search that queries article titles and body content. No external search engine or indexing service is required — queries run directly against the database using SQL LIKE matching.

How Search Works#

When a client types a search term, Commerce runs a LIKE '%term%' query against:

• Article title (weighted higher — title matches appear first in results)
• Article body content

Only articles that are Published and belong to an Active category are returned. Draft articles and articles in inactive categories are excluded from all search results.

[!TIP] Because search uses LIKE matching, it finds partial word matches. A search for invoic will match "invoice" and "invoicing". Keep article titles close to natural language queries.

Search Bar in the Portal#

The search bar appears in the portal header on KB pages. On the /kb index and individual category pages, it is prominently displayed. On other portal pages (dashboard, billing, etc.) the search bar may appear as a smaller icon-triggered input, depending on the portal theme.

Search results are displayed on a dedicated results page at /kb/search?q=your+query. Each result shows:

• Article title (linked)
• Category name
• A text excerpt from the article body

Showing or Hiding KB Search in Portal Settings#

The KB search bar can be toggled in Admin → Settings → Client Portal → Features. If you have not yet populated the KB with enough articles to make search useful, disable it to avoid showing an empty results page.

Related Articles on the Ticket Open Page#

This is the most impactful KB feature for reducing support load. When a client navigates to Open Ticket and begins typing a subject line, Commerce fires a live search against the KB and displays up to five matching articles in a panel below the subject field.

The client can click any suggested article to read it in a new tab without losing their ticket draft. If their question is answered, they can close the page without submitting.

[!IMPORTANT] Related article suggestions on the ticket page use the same title + body LIKE query. Make sure article titles use the vocabulary your clients use, not internal jargon. A client typing "email not working" will match an article titled "Troubleshooting Email Delivery Issues" but may miss one titled "SMTP Authentication Failures."

No Full-Text Index Required#

Search performance is acceptable for typical Knowledge Base sizes (under a few thousand articles) without a dedicated full-text index. If your KB grows very large and search becomes slow, consider adding a MySQL FULLTEXT index to the kb_articles table's title and body columns. This is a database-level change and not required during normal operation.

Search and Article Visibility#