Understanding Search-as-a-Service: Features and Benefits

The software and tech industry loves new buzzwords. Over the years, we've seen terms like Platform as a Service (PaaS), Internet of Things (IoT), Microservices, Containerization, etc.

One of the most popular ones is SaaS, which confusingly means the same thing as Software as a Service AND Search-as-a-Service.

We’ll discuss search-as-a-service in this article: what it means, how it works, its benefits, and why you might find it useful.

What Is Search-as-a-Service?

Search-as-a-service is a business concept where an external provider manages a company’s internal search functions. It is a type of software-as-a-service product. It works like an internal search engine that connects a company’s data and lets its employees and customers search and access specific content.

As a software-as-a-service model, search-as-a-service tools are built and managed by third-party companies. They can be categorized into two: enterprise search and site-specific web search.

Enterprise search allows organizations to search across all their internal data sources. It offers features like advanced filtering, security controls, and integration with enterprise systems. Site search, on the other hand, focuses on enhancing user experience within a particular website. It offers search features like customization, relevance tuning, search analytics, etc.

The major difference between these two categories is that enterprise search focuses on providing internal data to employees and authorized team members. In contrast, site-specific websites provide search services and personalization to customers.

This article will focus more on enterprise search-as-a-service and how it can serve as an essential workflow optimization technique. Read on to get a more detailed explanation of how it works.

How Does Enterprise Search-as-a-Service Work?

Alt text: The image shows a man in a red shirt and black pants sitting on top of a large magnifying glass while working on a laptop.

Here’s how it typically works:

Process 1: Subscription and API Integration

Search-as-a-service usually works as a pay-as-you-go contract where you can pay a monthly subscription for the features that you use. When this is done, and a contract is signed, the search service provider integrates one or more APIs into your company's system. These APIs upload all your company's relevant data into the search software, thereby giving it access to retrieve data from the allowed sources.

These sources can consist of various data repositories within your company; some of them may include:

• Email servers like Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, etc.
• Document management systems like SharePoint, Google Drive
• Customer relationship management (CRM) systems like Hubspot, Salesforce
• Human resources information systems like WOrkday, BambooHR
• Intranet portals like Confluence, Jive
• File storage solutions like Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.
• Enterprise resource planning systems like SAP, Oracle ERP

Process 2: Data Indexing

Next, the search service provider starts the data indexing process. Simply put, this is a process of creating a guide or cataloging the information from your company's data repository. Just like a library card catalog helps people find books quickly, this data indexing process helps you quickly retrieve information from your company's data sources.

It does this by:

1. Crawling: The search platform scans all information sources connected to its APIs in process one above.
2. Index Creation: It makes a list or guide of all the information in the data sources.
3. Frequent Updates: it regularly updates this guide to include new information.

The major aim of data indexing is to quickly retrieve information from your data sources and improve your search experience.

Process 3: Vector Searching

This is the process of assigning a numerical value (also called vector embedding) to all indexed data (text, image, video, etc).

Here's a breakdown of how it works:

1. Vector Embedding: Each piece of data (text, image, video) is given a numerical value called a "vector."
2. Query Conversion: When you enter a search query, the search query is turned into a vector.
3. Proximity Search: The search service finds relevant results to your queries by looking for vectors close to your query vector in the database.

This process lets you search using everyday (human) language, making it easy for the search service to understand what you're looking for and provide the right information.

4 Types of Search-as-a-Service Tools

All search-as-a-service software go through the processes mentioned above to retrieve search query results, but they differ in the way they handle and carry out this data retrieval process.

1. Federated Search System

This type of search-as-a-service system retrieves information from multiple different sources with a single query. It allows you to simultaneously search across various databases, repositories, or platforms and see results from all of those sources in one place.

A federated search system does not store data. Instead, it sends your search query to various data sources in real-time and combines and presents the search results as a single set of results.

2. Specialized (or Vertical) Search System

This is tailored to search data sources in a specific industry, domain or content type; this could be academic research, legal documents, medical reports, e-commerce products, HR documents, etc.

The algorithms and indexing methods of a specialized search system are optimized to the specific content type and characteristics of the data it queries. This type of search system is often used to retrieve sensitive information because it provides more accurate and relevant results within the specified domain.

3. Centralized (or Unified) Search System

This type of search-as-a-service system works like a federated search system, with the only difference being that it collects and stores all data in a single, unified index or database. Like the federated search systems, it allows you to search for data from different API-integrated sources. However, it stores all this data in a single index, from where it quickly shows you the results of your search.

Its stored index method enables it to retrieve information faster. It reduces search latency, which comes as a result of querying multiple sources individually and displaying all relevant results from all your data sources. Search-as-a-service providers usually defer to this type of search system because it is easier to manage and update a single index or database than it is to manage multiple indexes.

4. Distributed Search System

This is the opposite of the centralized search-as-a-service system. It spreads the search data and processing tasks across multiple servers or nodes in different locations. This server distribution makes it easy to handle large volumes of data and query search and helps it to quickly present relevant search results as the search workload is shared across multiple servers.

Here’s how it works: each server has its subset of the data and index. So, when a search query is made, it is sent to all these distributed servers simultaneously. Then, each server processes the query independently and returns its results. The search platform then aggregates these results to present a unified list to the user.

While the four different types of search services handle and retrieve data in different ways, they all come with a simple search bar incorporated into their software. This search bar acts as a front-end interface that you can use to communicate with their APIs to make a query and get relevant and accurate results.

What Are the Benefits of Enterprise Search-as-a-Service?

Here are some of the benefits your business can gain with an enterprise search-as-a-service tool:

Enhanced Productivity

According to Interact, employees waste 19.8% of business time, or about 1.6 hours per day, searching for information to do their jobs. This is equivalent to losing one day per working week to tasks that don't directly add value to the company's growth.

However, with an enterprise search-as-a-service tool, employees can quickly find the information they need without needing to search through multiple sources, folders or windows. This tool offers speed and accuracy, which, in turn, reduces the time your employees spend on researching and boosts overall work productivity.

Improves Data Management

An enterprise search-as-a-service tool gives you a bird’s eye view of your company’s data. It combines multiple data sources into a single searchable index, making it easy for employees to access relevant information from one place. In other words, employees can search for information across HR records, financial data, legal documents, marketing materials, and other data sources from one central search interface.

Moreover, these tools carry out real-time indexing and updates to ensure that all displayed results are current and relevant to the search query. Likewise, they provide advanced search features like full-text search, filtering and faceted navigation to help you quickly find and retrieve specific data. Utilizing an AI knowledge base can further enhance these capabilities by providing comprehensive and intelligent data management solutions.

Informs Business Strategy

A search-as-a-service tool can be a combination of enterprise search (internal data search for employees) and site search (external data search for customers). A combination of these tool search types can provide insights that can help you improve your business's strategy.

For instance, this tool can provide detailed analytics on your customer's search queries and user behavior. These analytics can, in turn, offer insights into what information is most sought after and how it influences your current business decisions.

Further Reading: How AI Data Analysis Improves Business Decisions

Furthermore, a combination of these two searches helps you identify any emerging trends and patterns from your customers' searches. This insight gives you a head start in anticipating market shifts and allows you to adapt your strategies to capitalize on them.

Moreover, it gives you a consolidated view of your internal and external data. Thereby allowing you to guide your business strategic planning process to include available insights and market conditions.

Enhance Your Organization’s Knowledge Management

Sometimes, employees need information that isn't in documents or data sources. This information could be abstract details that are in the minds of long-time staff or contextual information that doesn't have a direct data source. With an enterprise search-as-a-service tool, you can turn your company's records into a valuable source of contextual knowledge to help you find the precise answers you need.

For instance, your company has only one in-house graphics designer named Matt. You need Matt for an urgent design task only to find out that he is on paid leave for a week. You have only two options:

• Hire a freelancer, which will take a long time, and you stand the risk of them not getting exactly what you want.
• Or you can create the graphics yourself which will rob you of the time you need to do other things, or even waste your time if you don't have graphics design skills.

In this situation, inserting a search query like "Which of our employees have graphics design skills" into an enterprise search-as-a-service tool will tell the number of your employees who have graphics design skills listed in their CVs. With this information, you can quickly assign the task and get a new-perfect first draft without delays.

Secures Access Across Data Silos

It is not uncommon for companies to have numerous data divisions, properties, and silos. Data silos are pockets of information within an organization that is not easily accessible or integrated with other data sources. They are created to enhance the security and control of sensitive information.

However, data silos can lead to inefficiencies and confusion as some employees may struggle to retrieve or connect relevant contextual data to help them carry out their jobs. An enterprise search-as-a-service offers a balanced platform that retrieves information from data silos while keeping security intact. It does this by delivering siloed information to employees based on the access controls and permissions you set. This way, employees can only see results they are allowed to view.

Get Unified Internal Data Access With Atlas UP

Atlas UP is a one-stop tool that gives you access to all your company’s internal data. We offer enterprise search-as-a-service features that provide relevant and contextual results for all search queries, from general company-related questions to human resources data.

We provide a central knowledge base of your company's information. It comes with AI algorithms to give you contextual results to general company information like mission, vision, goals, operational metrics, etc. Its GPT AI capabilities also allow employees to use natural language queries to analyze data and get insights.

Read more: How artificial intelligence improves bi

Besides, it allows you to easily port data from one Enterprise Operating System (EOP) to the other, plus a manual interact option, which you can use if an automated integration is not possible. We also offer an accountability matrix that clarifies the roles and access levels of each team member. This keeps security intact for siloed data, leads to better coordination and reduces confusion.

This feature acts like an advanced HR tool and integrates with the UP portal tool and your company's database to provide insights about your employees. We also offer integration with scheduling tools to make sure that meetings, deadlines and shifts are properly coordinated and readily accessed.

But it doesn't stop there, as Atlas UP also provides a risk identification sub-feature based on your employees' availability. In order words, it tells you how a team member's extended leave could impact a project's deadline or impact team performance. This gives you time to mitigate those risks by reallocating resources or adjusting your timelines.

Interested? Schedule a demo with us to learn more.

Conclusion

One way to stay ahead of your competition, reduce losses or mistakes, and generate more revenue is through business process optimization. The ability to cut down the time that it takes for your employees to search for information needed to do their jobs properly is an optimization that you shouldn't miss out on.

Atlas UP is one of the most cost-effective enterprise search-as-a-service tools that will provide fast, accurate and scalable search capabilities across large volumes of data to enhance your organization's efficiency.

To learn more, schedule a demo with us.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a search-as-a-service do?

A search-as-a-service tool provides a cloud-based solution for indexing and retrieving information across various data sources. It delivers powerful search functionality, including advanced features like relevance ranking and filtering, without requiring extensive infrastructure or maintenance. This service simplifies data management and enhances user experience by ensuring fast and accurate search results.

What does SaaS stand for?

SaaS stands for software-as-a-service and search-as-a-service. In the context of software-as-a-service (SaaS), SaaS stands for Software as a Service, which delivers software applications over the internet on a subscription basis. Then search-as-a-service means a cloud-based platform where search functionality is managed and offered as a service. It allows users to integrate advanced search features into their applications.

Is Algolia SaaS or Paas?

Algolia is a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) that provides a cloud-based search and discovery API that is used for building search functionality into applications. It delivers search capabilities as a managed service, allowing users to integrate and customize search features without managing the underlying infrastructure.

What is Coveo search?

Coveo Search is an enterprise search and AI-powered search platform designed to deliver personalized and relevant search results across various data sources. It integrates with other systems and applications to provide a unified search experience, enhanced information retrieval and user engagement.