Smart Search to Search Content in Agreement Documents in Lightning

Smart Search is a metadata-driven search tool in Conga CLM that allows users to quickly locate agreements, clauses or related documents based on indexed fields, agreement status, agreement types and custom metadata. It supports advanced filtering, saved search queries, and dynamic search panels making it easier to find relevant content without needing to scroll through agreement records manually.

The Smart Search feature allows you to search for information without the need to understand the working of CLM. This feature allows you to find information of any record regardless of where the information is stored. Smart Search supports natural language search. This means you can search for information in CLM using everyday language. The search returns a list of agreement documents that match all your search queries.

You can use Smart Search in Microsoft Teams, Slack, or Webchat similar to a chatbot. You can also configure a quick search box on the Home page to initiate your search on the Home page. For more information, see Setting Up Quick Search on the Home Page.

Using Smart Search, you can:

Search information using keywords, queries, semantic, and natural language.
Configure the fields that you can see on the search grid.
View the content snippet that contains the search query.
Preview the document.
Open the document in PDF viewer.
Download the document.
Email the search results.
Apply filters and conditions to narrow down the search results.
Use search operators such as AND and OR.
Save, edit, and delete search queries and make them private or available to the other users in your org.

You can perform the following types of search. Contact the Conga Support team to add custom synonyms in the Smart Search.


Search Type	Description	Example
Keywords	Search with objects within the scope	Object name: Agreement Name Name of the document: "MSA with Conga" Clause name: Terms and Conditions Account name: ABC corporation
Search operators	Search with search operators (AND, OR). You can specify a main object as well as a related object.	Agreement Start Date greater than “1/1/2021” AND Agreement End Date less than “31/1/2021” Account equals “ABC Corporation” AND Status Category equals “Import” AND Status equals “Review” Record Type equals “MSA” AND Region equals “North America” OR Region equals “Europe”
Search operator + Keyword	Search with search operators and keywords	Agreement Start Date greater than “1/1/2021” AND Agreement End Date less than “31/1/2021” + Keyword “Force Majeure”
Context-Driven or scope	Narrow down query scope with specific inputs	Agreement Start Date greater than “1/1/2021” AND Record Type = MSA AND (Account Type equals “Customer” OR Account Industry equals “Manufacturing”
Natural language	Search in everyday language using a main object	Pull up agreements with a start date greater than 1st of January 2021 Pull up agreements over 100K Pull up agreements that are net due Agreements with payment term net 30
Natural language with nested	Search in everyday language using a main object and related object	Pull up the service clauses for agreements over $20k
Natural language with nested and Keywords	Search in everyday language using a main object, related object, documents, and clause text	Find all agreements over 100K which have a Force Majeure mentioned in them.
Natural language with nested, keywords, and boolean expressions	Search in everyday language using a main object, related object, documents, and clause text along with boolean expressions	Find all agreements over 100K which contains both Force Majeure and Limitation of Liability. Find all agreements over 100K which contains Force Majeure and Limitation of Liability and Indemnification Find all agreements of type MSA over 100K which contains both Force Majeure and Limitation of Liability Find all agreements over 100K which contains Force Majeure and not Audit Rights
Natural language nested, keywords, and synonyms	Search in everyday language using a main object, related object, documents, and clause text along with synonyms	Pull up agreements over 100K which have the mention Act of God Pull up agreements over 100K which have the mention "Act of God“
Natural language nested, keywords, synonyms, and boolean expressions	Search in everyday language using a main object, related object, documents, and clause text along with synonyms and boolean expressions	Pull up agreements over 100K which contain an Act of God but not Indemnification
Natural language nested, keywords, synonyms, boolean expressions, and scope	Search in everyday language using a main object, related object, documents, and clause text along with Boolean Expressions and scope	Find all agreements of type MSA over 100K which mentions both Act of God and Limitation of Liability
Basic semantic	Search with keywords along with context	Pull up top three agreements from last year

Smart Search can save hours of manual searching and significantly improve compliance and speed but only if metadata hygiene is maintained and search panels are tailored for end-user needs. The accuracy and consistency are limited if the document database is large.

Limitations

Be aware of the following limitations when using Smart Search:

Email and export options do not work when you search using search operators.
You cannot remove queries displayed below the search bar using the remove icon ().
Smart Search does not interpret or extract meaning from the natural language text within documents. It is only able to analyze the structured data stored in fields on the agreement record.
For example, consider the input query "Show me agreements that expire in April 2026" for:
- Agreement 1
  - Contract End Date field is empty.
  - The attached document to the agreement states "This contract expires one year from the effective date, April 2, 2025."
- Agreement 2
  - Contract End Date field is set to 04/23/2026.
  - The attached document to the agreement states "This contract expires one year from the effective date, April 23, 2025."
In this scenario, Smart Search returns only Agreement 2 since the end date is explicitly populated.
While some full-text capabilities exist, it does not function like Google Search for inside-PDF content.
Newly uploaded agreements or edits may take a few minutes to appear in search.
Supports Word and PDF formats only.
Attach documents to the Agreement object under one of the following locations:
- Agreement > Files
- Agreement > Document Versions
- Agreement > Agreement Documents
Some fields may require exact matches or be sensitive to formatting depending on configuration.
Smart Search does not perform OCR on documents. Image-based PDFs must be OCR'd using another tool before their content can be searched or appear in Smart Search results.
When Smart Search determines that a query seeks to search in documents, then the maximum of number of results is 2,000. These search results can also be affected by user access permissions. In large agreement repositories, additional filters may be required to ensure relevant and accessible agreements appear in results. For more information, see SOSL Limits on Search Results and SOQL and SOSL Limits for Search Queries.
Since Smart Search does not index the full body of documents like a full-text search engine, searches are only as accurate as the fields used and how well they are maintained. For example, a missing clause type tag prevents that agreement from appearing in a clause search.

Best Use Cases

Smart Search is especially useful for:

Quickly finding agreements by status, date, party name, or type.
Locating agreements that contain specific clauses or terms.
Tracking renewals or expirations within a time window.
Reviewing agreement obligations or risk indicators.
Enabling legal and procurement teams to audit content efficiently.

Best Practices for Using Smart Search

Follow these best practices to improve search results and efficiency:


Practice	Recommendation
Use saved filters	Create saved searches for common queries (for example, "All agreements expiring in 90 days").
Tag agreements consistently	Ensure fields like region, type, party, and status are consistently filled to enable meaningful filters.
Train teams on metadata usage	A search is only as effective as your metadata. Ensure users understand what fields to update.
Limit access based on roles	Access to search results depends on assigned profile permissions.
Leverage search panels	Customize panels for legal, sales, or procurement teams to suit their workflows.
Export and email results	Export results to CSV, XLS, PDF files, with the option to email the file.

Searching Content in Agreement Documents

Ensure that you have generated the registration setting to use the smart search feature. For more information, see Generating Registration Setting.

Navigate to the Smart Search tab.

Note: If you have configured the quick search box on the Home page, you can initiate the search with a keyword or a query in natural language. When you press Enter, you are navigated to the Smart Search tab and you can view your query results.
Enter a keyword, phrase, or text (natural language) in the search box and press Enter.
A list of search results is displayed in rows. You can view the number of search results below the search box. You can sort the columns alphabetically by clicking the sort icons ( or ) on the column headers. You can also expand the column size by dragging the column border.
Click the expand icon () to view the content snippet that contains the search query. In the content snippet, the first occurrence of the search text is highlighted.

Note: If you search with multiple keywords, all the keywords are highlighted in the snippet and you can also view the page number in which the keyword is found. If there is no text found matching in a document, the snippet is not displayed.
Click a result row to preview the document in the right panel.

Note: The preview is not available for documents that are stored in the agreement document. To open the document, click PDF Viewer.
To open the document, click the Open in PDF Viewer hyperlink.The document opens in the Conga-provided PDF viewer.

Note: If there is a problem in loading the preview screen, an error message is displayed. You can click PDF Viewer in the error message to open the document in PDF viewer.
Click the download icon () to download the document.
Click the document name to download the original document associated with the record.
Click Close to close the PDF viewer and return to the search results page.
From the header icons, you can perform the following tasks:
1. Email the search results:
  1. Click the Email icon () to share the search results with other users through email.The Share Search Results popup is displayed.
  2. Enter the following details:
    1. From the Share selected items in the format of dropdown, select HTML, Excel (.csv), Excel (.xlsx), or PDF format.
    2. From: Select an email address.
    3. To: Add email addresses of the recipients.
    4. Click CC beside the To field to add CC recipients.
    5. (Optional) Subject: According to your search, the subject is already added. You can also edit and customize according to your requirement.The body of the content contains the search results.
    6. Select HTML, Excel (.csv), Excel (.xlsx), or PDF format according to your requirement.
  3. Click Share.
    
    Note:
    You can navigate to the Agreement Detail page by clicking the agreement name hyperlink in the exported document. You can use the org-wide email address while sending an email. For more information, see Setting Up Organization-Wide Email Address. You can share multiple documents displayed in the search result as a downloadable link with a Salesforce Contact or any recipient. For more information, see Emailing Multiple Agreement Documents.
2. Export the search results:
  1. Click the Export icon () to export the search results.The Export Selected Files popup is displayed.
  2. Select PDF or XLS according to your requirement.
  3. Enter a file name and click Export.
3. Configure the search result columns:
  1. Click the Settings icon () to configure the fields that must be displayed as columns to search results.The Select Fields to Display popup is displayed. In the Available Fields column, you can see object names. when you select an object, you can see primary and secondary-level fields in an object. In the Visible Fields column, you can see the fields visible on the search grid.Default fields in the Visible Fields column are highlighted in yellow and cannot be moved. When you select a field to move, the field is highlighted in blue.
  2. In the search bar, type an exact field name to search for a field.
  3. Drag and drop fields from Available Fields to Visible Fields or change the position of a field.
  4. To add a new field to the search results, select a field from the Available Fields and click the icon to move the field to Visible Fields.
  5. To remove a field from the search results, select a field from the Visible Fields and click the icon to move the field to Available Fields.
  6. To reorder the fields that must be displayed to search results, click or . You can also drag and drop fields to rearrange the fields.
  7. Click Save.The field configuration is automatically applied to future searches.
    Note: When your search query includes a field that is not configured as a search result column, the field included in the search query is displayed as a search result column.
4. Close the preview panel.
  1. Click the preview icon () to close the document preview.
Click the Agreement Name hyperlink to navigate to the Agreement Detail page.

Applying Filters to Search Results

To apply filters to search results

Click the filter icon () to apply filters to your search results.The filter popup is displayed.
Select a Primary Object from the dropdown.

From the "Take Action When" section, select one of the following options:


Option	Description
All conditions are met	If one of the conditions is false, the flow evaluates the next outcome’s conditions.
Any condition is met	If one of the conditions is true, the flow immediately takes this outcome’s path.
Custom	When you select this option, you can enter the condition logic by entering up to 1000 characters in the Custom Logic field. You can use: Numbers to refer to each condition AND or OR to identify which combination of conditions must true Parentheses to group parts of the string together Sample expression: ((1 AND 2 AND 3) OR 4)

Click Add Filters to add additional filters.
Select a field and an operator from the respective dropdown.
Enter a value for the field.
Click Add Related Objects to add related objects.
You can add conditions and filters similar to the primary objects.
Click Apply.
You can view the applied search filters below the search box.

Saving a Search Query

To save a search query

Click Save Search.
The Save Search popup is displayed.
Enter a search name, description, and select the visibility option.

Note: If you select Private as the visibility option, only you can see the saved search. If you select Public as the visibility option, all the users in your org can view the saved search.
Click Save.

Using a Saved Search

To use a saved search

Click the icon to view the saved searches.
Select a saved search.The search results are displayed.

Editing a Saved Search

To edit a saved search

Click the icon to view the saved searches.
Click Edit.
The Edit Saved Search popup is displayed.
Click the edit icon ().
Update the required details and click Update.

Deleting a Saved Search

To delete a saved search

Click the icon to view the saved searches.
Click Edit.
The Edit Saved Search popup is displayed.
Click the delete icon ().
The saved search is deleted.
Click Save.

Using Smart Search as a Chatbot

To configure smart search in MS Teams, Slack, or Webchat, write to SmartSearch-Onboarding@conga.com . You will receive a configuration link email from the Conga Support team.

Prerequisite: To configure smart search in MS Teams, Slack, or Webchat, write to SmartSearch-Onboarding@conga.com . You will receive a configuration link email from the Conga Support team.

To use smart search as a chatbot

Click the link received from the Conga Support team.
Login to salesforce.
Enter your query in MS Teams, Slack, or Webchat. Sample query : Pull up agreements that contain Force Majeure, Term, Rights, and Affiliate.
You can sort the results and view more details.
Enter show me snippet for #<number> to see the snippet of a search result. Sample: show me snippet for #5.
Click Send it to me to share the snippet as an email.
Verify the email id and click Yes! Go ahead to send the email.
(Optional) Click Change recipient to change the email address of the recipient.

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