Overview
Background
Where you may see this
How to get exact counts
Overview
To make searches faster, iSearch searches several smaller parts of the data at the same time.
This does not affect which records are returned. Your search results are still correct. However, some counts shown in the Refine filters panel and Associated people may be estimated.
Background
A widely used way to make searching faster is to split one search into several smaller searches. This is called sharding. The results of the smaller searches are then combined to produce the overall search results.
iSearch also shows some summary counts for search results. These are created by combining the counts from the smaller searches. If a name or value does not appear in one of the smaller searches, iSearch cannot always tell whether it is not present there at all or whether it appears only a very small number of times. In these cases, it may show an estimated count instead of an exact one.
Where you may see this
You may see estimated counts in:
Associated people "In Search Results" and occasionally in the Refine filters panel
- In Associated people, estimated counts are marked with a (!) symbol.
- In Refine, you may see these in fields that have many values, such as MeSH Plus terms. This is very rare.
How to get exact counts
To see the exact count for a person in Associated people, select the person and choose Filter to selection.