Global search

Search in Polaris

The various possibilities to search for members, events, projects, newsletters, news, articles and documents in Polaris have one common starting point. It is the magnifying glass in the top right corner of the page.

Search possibilities for users non logged in

The public search (for users not logged in) only allows searching for public content. It is not possible to search for members.

Search possibilities for users logged in

Advanced search options are available for logged in members. They can search for:

1. Members (yearbook) - allows you to find members in any district, community region or club in in your Polaris instance.

2. New Members - shows members joining Rotary or Rotaract (or InnerWheel) in your Polaris instance over the past 3 years from the date of your search.

3. Obituary - shows members for which their club has written and published an In Memoriam article.

4. Content search - allows you to search all Polaris web content in your country (in Calendar/Reports, Newsletters, News, Projects or Various articles and in Documents) for any keyword.

Members (yearbook)

At the start of the search, the list of results is empty because the complete list of members is too large and irrelevant.

Use the 3 fields below to filter your search, then click on the Filter button to launch it.

Enter search term(s)

You must enter at least 3 characters (but it's advisable to enter more for finer filtering) in the first search field, otherwise the search will not work. It does not matter whether the characters are at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the word you are looking for.

NOTE

Upper-/lowercase, umlauts and accent marks are meaningless. If you enter multiple words separated by a space, the “AND” operator is applied.

Which personal data to search for?

The selection menu in the second field simplifies the process of indicating which personal information needs to be searched. You can select from the following search alternatives (the first option is pre-selected by default):

NOTE

Any member can intentionally hide his/her personal data. In this case, you won't find this member in your search.

Where to search for one or more member(s)?

The selection menu in the third field allows you to indicate which district, region, or club to look for. You can select only one option (by default, all clubs within your district are included in the search).

Clubs are sorted alphabetically within each district. Special clubs, foundations, fellowships and other units are not listed.

New Members

The search for New Members is similar to the search for Members (yearbook), with an automatic filter that provides only the names of members who have joined Rotary or Rotaract (or InnerWheel) over the last 3 years from the date of your search.

NOTE

By default, a list of all newly joined members across all your country’s Polaris districts is shown. If needed, utilize the location field to narrow down your search.

Obituary

The same principle for searching members is applicable when looking for members who have deceased, but only those for whom the club has published an obituary article and made it accessible to the community will be shown. Numerous clubs don’t do this.

By default, the current year is preset in the year selection field, if there is an entry in the current year, and the initial list shows all members deceased in the current year.

You can click on the button RESET SEARCH to get the complete list or you can select another year. The first field allows you to restrict the list by entering a name or part of it.

NOTE

If you cannot find the deceased member in this section, please contact the club secretary. For data protection reasons, it is not possible to search for deceased members who have not been the subject of an Obituary publication in Polaris.

Member search – important notes

• The search does not use language translation. E.g. search for classification "Attorney" will not return "Anwalt" or "avocat".

• You can search only for active members. Other contacts, deceased, resigned or expelled members are excluded.

• Because Guests are members in another club, you will find them and see their home club (blue) and guest clubs (yellow).

• If you don't want to disclose your personal data to the Rotarian community, you can hide particular fields by adjusting yourself your personal profile. Then they will be visible only to members of your home club.

• GDPR: The member data in the result list is not visible to the public and also not to other contacts! Only active members with valid login can use the search function and see the member data!

• Intentionally, there is no export of this data into machine readable format like Excel.

General recommendations

1. Use specific terms, don't use short or abstract terms.

2. If you do not find what you are looking for, it may have many reasons:

   • The person you are looking for is not or no longer in the community.

   • The personal data of that person are hidden for the community.

   • The person you are looking for is an other contact.

TIP

Experiment with the search tool to gain a clearer understanding of its functionality!

Content search

At the start of the search, the result list is empty. You need to define what you are looking for and set restrictions. Use the 4 fields below to filter your search, then click on button SEARCH to launch it.

Enter search term(s)

You must enter at least 3 characters (but it's advisable to enter more for finer filtering) in the first search field (highlighted in red), otherwise the search will not work. It does not matter whether the characters are at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the word you are looking for.

NOTE

Upper-/lowercase, umlauts and accent marks are meaningless. If you enter multiple words separated by a space, the “AND” operator is applied.

Time period restriction

Using the selection menu in the second field (highlighted in blue), you can more easily limit the list of results by time and search specifically for articles in the specified period. By default no restriction is applied.

NOTE

If the result list is very long (>100), then reducing the time period is the most effective measure to reduce it.

Scope restriction

Using the selection menu in the third field (highlighted in green), you can easily limit the search to the desired unit. By default, only your home club is searched.

If you chose Search in all clubs and districts, the result list may be huge and not useful.

NOTE

Only articles which are visible to you will appear in the result list. What you can see depends on the visibility of the article and on your rights. The more access rights you have, the more articles you may see.

Content type restriction

Using the selection menu in the fourth field (highlighted in orange), you can easily limit the search to the desired type of articles. By default all content types are searched.

The search works also in the content of the files (i.e. inside the document), not only for their names. Only content of documents in the format PDF/A, Word, Excel, PowerPoint is scanned.

Files in archived folders are excluded from the search and will not appear in the result list.

NOTE

The visibility of the folder may be a reason why you will not find the file.

Content search – important notes

• The search only considers content that has the same language as the current page. Example: articles in French will not be found if your current language is German. If you want  articles in French , you have to change the language in the upper right corner and repeat the search.

• Searching for words like "Lunch" or "Meeting" which are used in many titles may return large number of hits.

• If you create new content in Polaris, it will take 2-3 days until the article will appear in the result list. This is because the content must be scanned and indexed first. This process happens over night and in hours of low utilization.

• The result list is in random order. Maybe the article you are looking for is on the bottom of the list. If the result list exceeds 100 hits, then it is advisable to apply additional criteria to restrict it or to repeat the search with a more specific term.

General recommendations

1. Use specific terms, don't use short or abstract terms.

2. Pay attention to the language you have set for the current page.

3. If the result exceed 100 hits, apply restrictions to narrow the target.

4. Use multiple browser tabs to preserve the result list and open the found club, person or article in a new tab.

5. If you do not find what you are looking for, it may have many reasons:

   • The term you are looking for exists in another language.

   • The article is not visible for you.

   • The file you are looking for is in a archived folder.

   • The document has not the right format and cannot be scanned.

TIP

Experiment with the search tool to gain a clearer understanding of its functionality!