Search data

How do I search data?

You can now access the Search data interface from any page in ThoughtSpot. To begin your search, select the Search data button on the navigation bar, and enter your search terms in the blank Search bar that appears. ThoughtSpot automatically selects the data source used in your most recent search. To search a different data source, select Sources from the left menu, and select the Choose sources icon Choose sources wrench icon.

Search bar for Search data
If the Data Fluency feature enabled, the process of choosing a data source is different. For more information, see Choosing a data source with Data Fluency.

You’ve probably seen one of these before:

Generic search bar

Select the box and start typing some letters. As soon as you begin typing, ThoughtSpot suggests some search terms. Type slowly, and use the suggestions to find what you’re looking for.

ThoughtSpot Cloud’s default search experience is search on enter. This means that you can add new tokens to the search bar, or remove them, without altering your existing search, until you press Enter on your keyboard, or select Go to the right of the search bar. This means that you may need to press Enter or Go to ensure that ThoughtSpot updates your search with any new items in the search bar.

When you phrase a question in ThoughtSpot Search, use keywords instead of full conversational style.

For example, avoid: Find all books by Lewis Carroll with the title Alice in Wonderland. Instead, type: carroll alice.

In another example, avoid Find the largest city by population. Instead, type: largest city by population.

Do use helper words, like “by” and “for”, but they can also be left out, and the search will return the same answer.

What kinds of things can I type?

Search is based on the tables that exist in your data. Tables are made of rows and columns, like spreadsheets. So you can search by typing in any of these words:

  • The column name: like revenue, product name, or store

  • Any of the values in the columns: like 20000, kitten chow, or richmond

  • One of the special keywords ThoughtSpot understands: like yesterday, >, or contains.

Save an Answer

An Answer is the result of a single search. You can save an Answer you want to work more on later, or just keep it for your personal use. You can also share an Answer with other users. The Answers tab is where you can view and then modify your saved search results.