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rahulg5541
September 18, 2025
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How search works in dropdown field

  • September 18, 2025
  • 11 replies
  • 0 views

Hi, 

Does any have idea, how search will work in dropdown. I can see, there is only an option to show or hide a search box. I think it's a default behaviour.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it don't work. I'm posting one weird result from search. 

Please let me know, if anyone had any idea. 

Best answer by rahulg5541

Got reply from Appian Support Case.

So for a search term like "monkey" the entry matches due to the characters showing up in that order in the entry found (matching characters highlighted in bold):

(Improve complet) Upon timeout, send partial results to the backend and then ask the user if they want to move to the next one

11 replies

harshas2775
harshas2775
September 18, 2025

If the dropdown has more data in list e.g 12 or more options then search box comes up by default. If you have less options like 4-5 then search box doesnt shows. 

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    rahulg5541Author
    September 18, 2025

    my question is not about search box showing up, I wanted to understand how the search is working. I did type 'monkey' in the search box. Expectation is no results found, but I got one record, not sure, how it filtered?

    stefanhelzle0001
    stefanhelzle0001
    September 18, 2025

    Maybe that "monkey" is hiding somewhere ... without seeing your full code, hard to say.

    shubhama926776
    shubhama926776
    September 18, 2025

    Dropdown search uses substring matching to filter choices based on text entered. It searches anywhere in the choice labels, not just the beginning.

    R
    rahulg5541Author
    September 18, 2025

    If possible, can you explain how the search is performed in the picture, to understand me better. 

    shubhama926776
    shubhama926776
    September 18, 2025

    Interesting for me!!
    Appian algorithm appears to be doing a scattered character matching where it finds all the letters of your search term distributed throughout the text, regardless of order.
    All six letters (m-o-n-k-e-y) exist somewhere within that sentence.

    m from "timeout" or anywhere it's available.

    o from "timeout" or anywhere it's available.

    n from "backend" or anywhere it's available.

    k from "backend (the 'k' sound in 'ck')" or anywhere it's available.

    e from "user" or anywhere it's available.

    y from "they"

    Try changing y from "they" of this it will not appear.
    I would recommend you to open Support Case with Appian with this behavior to understand more.

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