Learn more about keyword syntax

You can use Hold and eDiscovery to locate and suspend records from expiration policies for any site on which the Hold and eDiscovery feature is activated. You would typically use this feature for records that are subject to events such as litigation, audits, or investigations. Organizations can use holds to prevent records that may be relevant to ongoing litigation or investigation from expiring or being destroyed before the event to which they are relevant has been resolved.

You can use search to find and add multiple records to a hold all at once. You can search for records across multiple sites as long as each site has the Hold and eDiscovery feature enabled. To search for records across multiple sites, you should activate the Hold and eDiscovery feature for the top level site in your site collection.

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Find content by setting search criteria

Learn to write queries that find content

Find content by setting search criteria

Use the following procedure to specify the site that you want to search and the search terms related to the hold. In the search terms you specify, you can include words, quoted phrases, and terms that use keywords and properties.

Note:  The Hold and eDiscovery feature must be activated for any site that will host items in order to use the Hold feature. If you do not see the Hold and eDiscovery options on the Site Settings page, the Hold and eDiscovery features are not activated for the site.

1. On the site that contains records you want to search for click Site Actions, and then click Site Settings.

2. On the Site Settings page, in the Hold and eDiscovery section, click Discover and hold content.

3. On the Search and Add to Hold page, in the Search Criteria section, click Select Site.

4. In the Choose site dialog box, click the name of the site in which you want to search for records to add to a hold, and then click OK.

5. In the search box, type the keywords that you want to use to help you find relevant records, and then click Preview Results

Note:  To learn more about keywords and keyword syntax, see the Learn to write queries that find content section in this article.

1. After the list of results appear, in the Relevant Holds section; select the hold you want to apply to the records in the list.

2. Click OK.

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Learn to write queries that find content

You can type search terms on the Search and Add to Hold page in the Search Criteria section. Here are some basic rules to follow when adding your terms:

• A content query can include words, quoted phrases, and terms that use keywords and properties. Separate terms with spaces.

• The text box for search terms on the Search and Add to Hold page permit a maximum of 256 characters. Commonly used words such as the, it, and by, and single-digit numbers, are ignored.

• When you enclose a phrase in quotation marks, your search returns content within the chosen scope that contains the exact phrase that you typed.

• When you type words separated by spaces, your search returns content that contains all of the words that you typed, in any order. For example, to find both "Tips and Tricks" and "Tricks and Tips," type tips tricks.

• Type properties with values to match in property:value form. Values are not case-sensitive.

• Enclose a property value in quotation marks to find an exact match, or leave the value unquoted to find partial matches that begin with the letters typed. For example, if you look for filename:"Budget" (with quotation marks), your search will return a file named "Budget.xlsx." A search for filename:budget(without quotation marks) will also return the files "Budget_Current.xlsx" and "Budget_Next.xlsx."

• Queries cannot employ wildcard characters such as the asterisk (*) and question mark (?), or Boolean operators such as AND and OR.

• The search service interprets the space between terms that use different properties as an "AND." For example, if properties named subject and filetype are available, and you look for subject:budgetquarter:"Spring 2007" filetype:xlsx, your search will return Excel 2007 workbooks marked for that subject.

• The search service interprets the space between terms that use the same property as an "OR." For example, if the author property is available, and you look for author:"Jeff Price" author:"Ann Beebe", your search will return any item created by either person.

• To exclude content marked with a certain property value from your search results, place a minus sign (-) before the name of the property. For example, if a technology property is available, appending -technology:mobileto your query will exclude content about mobile technologies from your search results.

Note:  A query must include a term to find. Queries that consist only of terms to exclude will produce an error message..

• When you search on a term defined by your administrator as a keyword or one of its synonyms, that keyword's definition and its Best Bet links (if any) are featured at the beginning of your search results.

• Attachments to list items are not included in search results.

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