Skip To Content

/search: Group Content Search

  • URL:https://[root]/content/groups/[groupID]/search

Example usage

Below is a sample ArcGIS Online request URL used to access the group content search operation:

https://org.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/groups/93744920722644fcb926044f2cf327f6/search?categories=/Categories/Water,/Categories/Forest&f=pjson

Below is a sample ArcGIS Enterprise request URL used to access the group content search operation:

https://machine.domain.com/webadaptor/sharing/rest/content/groups/93744920722644fcb926044f2cf327f6/search?categories=/Categories/Water,/Categories/Forest&f=pjson

Description

This operation searches for items in a group. Searching for group content with group categories is only available at this endpoint. It is not the same as using q=group:[groupid] with search, which queries content categories defined at the organizational level. The search index is updated when users add, update, or remove content. There may be a lag between the time the content is updated and the time it's reflected in the search results. Search results only contain items that the user has permission to access.

Care should be taken when using ArcGIS REST API search operations (search, user search, group search, group content search) to find items, groups, and users programmatically. The Portal uses a powerful search engine to index information and to allow full text searching on it. This search engine uses many different inputs to find the appropriate results and rank them. This often makes search 'fuzzy', making it ideal for human interaction, but not necessarily ideal for looking for specific records programmatically. Developers should avoid using search to find specific items (e.g. by title) as the results of these types of queries might change as the search engine evolves.

Request parameters

ParameterDetails
start

The number of the first entry in the result set response. The index number is 1-based. The default value of start is 1.

Example

start=11
num

The maximum number of results to be included in the result set response. The default value is 10, and the maximum allowed value is 100. The actual number of returned results may be less than the num value. This happens when the number of results remaining after start is less than num.

Example


//Returns a max of 50 results in the response
num=50
q

The query string used to search. For advanced options, see Search reference.

Example

q=redlands+map
bbox

The bounding box for a spatial search defined as minx, miny, maxx, or maxy. Spatial search is an overlaps/intersects function of the query bbox and the extent of items. Items that have no extent (for example., .mxd, .3ds, .lyr) are not found when doing a bbox search. The item extent is assumed to be in the WGS84 geographic coordinate system.

Example

bbox=-118,32,-116,34
filter

Structured filtering is accomplished by specifying a field name followed by a colon and the term you are searching for with double quotation marks. It allows the passing in of application-level filters based on the context. Use an exact keyword match of the expected value for the specified field. Partially matching the filter keyword will not return meaningful results.

See Search reference for advanced options.

Example

filter=tags:"transportation"
categories

A comma separated list or JSON array of up to eight group content categories to search group items. The exact full path of each category is required, and an OR relationship between the categories must be specified. Each request allows a maximum of eight categories parameters with an AND relationship between the various categories parameters called.

Example: Search for group items with the water or forest group category in the United States.

Example


//Search for group items with the water or forest group category in the United States, in a comma separated list
categories=/Categories/Water,/Categories/Forest
categories=/Region/United States
categoryFilters

A comma-separated list of up to three category terms to search for items that have matching categories. Up to two categoryFilters parameters are allowed per request. This parameter cannot be used with the categories parameter to search in a request.

Example


//Search for items with categories containing 'basemap' or 'ocean'.
categoryFilters=basemap, ocean
sortField

The field to sort by. You can also sort by multiple fields (comma separated). Sort field names are not case sensitive. If sortField is not defined, the results are sorted by relevancy in descending order.

Values: title | created | type | owner | modified | added | avgrating | numratings | numcomments | numviews

sortOrder

Describes whether the results are returned in ascending or descending order. The default is ascending.

Note:

This applies when working with sortField.

Values: asc | desc

countFields

A comma-separated list of fields to count. The maximum number of fields allowed per request is three. Supported count fields are tags, type, access, contentstatus, and groupCategories.

Example

countFields=groupCategories, access
countSize

The maximum number of field values to count for each countFields. The default value is 10, and the maximum number allowed is 200.

Example

countSize=200
f

The response format. The default format is html.

Values: html | json | pjson

Response properties

PropertyDetails
total

The total number of results found for the whole query.

Note:

The total number of results that matches the query is counted accurately up to 10,000; if the total number is greater than this value, 10,000 will be returned. The top 10,000 query results are available to retrieve through pagination

start

The number of the first entry in the result set for this response. The index number is 1-based.

num

The number of results included in the result set for this response.

nextStart

The next entry index if the current result set doesn't contain all results, or -1 if it is the last batch.

results

A JSON array of item objects. See the response properties of an item.

Note:

The ownerFolder, protected, and commentsEnabled properties of an item are not included in group content search responses. size is always returned as -1.

aggregations

A counts JSON object that consists of an array of objects, one for each countFields requested. Each count field object has fieldName and fieldValues properties with fieldName representing the count field and fieldValues consisting of an array for each field value along with its corresponding count.

Note:

Field values are not case sensitive when counted and are always returned lowercase. For example, Basemap and basemap are counted as one field value, not two.

The aggregations property is included in responses when countFields is requested. It is recommended that you only query for aggregated counts once per search query, that is, on the first pagination batch, or use with num=0 to empty the results for improved performance.

Counts are approximate and are not always accurate.

Example:


{
  "counts": [
    {
      "fieldName": "contentstatus",
      "fieldValues": [
        {
          "value": "deprecated",
          "count": 4
        },
        {
          "value": "org_authoritative",
          "count": 2
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "fieldName": "access",
      "fieldValues": [
        {
          "value": "private",
          "count": 59
        },
        {
          "value": "public",
          "count": 15
        },
        {
          "value": "account",
          "count": 6
        },
        {
          "value": "shared",
          "count": 2
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

JSON Response syntax


{
  "total": <total number of results>,
  "start": <results in first set>,
  "num": <number of results per page>,
  "nextStart": <result number of next page>,
  "results": [
    {
      "id": "<item id>",
      "owner": "<owner username>",
      "created": date created shown in UNIX time,
      "modified": date modified shown in UNIX time,
      "guid": "<unique id>",
      "name": "<item name>",
      "title": "<item title>",
      "type": "<type>",
      "typeKeywords": ["<keyword1>", "<keyword2>", "<keyword3>", "<keyword4>"],
      "description": "<description>",
      "tags": ["<tag1>", "<tag2>", "<tag3>"],
      "snippet": "<summary>",
      "thumbnail": "<file name>",
      "extent": [
        [minX, minY],
        [maxX, maxY]
      ],
      "spatialReference": "<coordinate system>",
      "accessInformation": <credits>,
      "licenseInfo": "<access and use constraints>",
      "culture": "<culture code>",
      "url": <URL>,
      "proxyFilter": {},
      "access": "private | shared |  org | public",
      "size": <size>,
      "properties": {},
		    "appCategories": [],
		    "industries": [<list of industries>],
		    "languages": [<list of languages>],
		    "largeThumbnail": "<URL to thumbnail>",
		    "banner": "<URL to banner>",
		    "screenshots": [<list of URL to screenshots>],
		    "listed": true | false,
      "numComments": <number of comments>,
      "numRatings": <number of ratings>,
      "avgRating": <average rating>,
      "numViews": <number of views>,
      "lastViewed": <date/time in UNIX format>
    }
  ],
  "aggregations": {
    "counts": [
      {
        "fieldName": "<field name1>",
        "fieldValues": [
          {
            "value": "<field value1>",
            "count": <number of counts>
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

JSON Response example


{
  "total": 11,
  "start": 5,
  "num": 2,
  "nextStart": 7,
  "results": [
    {
      "id": "4ce2756331dd40cc936674cf3ad186ee",
      "owner": "org_admin",
      "created": 1636486115877,
      "isOrgItem": true,
      "modified": 1636486115877,
      "guid": null,
      "name": "hurricanes_sub2_spatiotemporal",
      "title": "hurricanes_sub2_spatiotemporal",
      "type": "Feature Service",
      "typeKeywords": [
        "Data",
        "Service",
        "Feature Service",
        "ArcGIS Server",
        "Feature Access",
        "Hosted Service",
        "providerSDS",
        "Spatiotemporal"
      ],
      "description": "Hurricane information",
      "tags": [],
      "snippet": null,
      "thumbnail": null,
      "documentation": null,
      "extent": [],
      "categories": [],
      "spatialReference": null,
      "accessInformation": null,
      "licenseInfo": null,
      "culture": null,
      "properties": null,
      "advancedSettings": null,
      "url": "https://machine.domain.com/webadaptor/rest/services/Hosted/hurricanes_sub2_spatiotemporal/FeatureServer",
      "proxyFilter": null,
      "access": "shared",
      "size": -1,
      "subInfo": 0,
      "appCategories": [],
      "industries": [],
      "languages": [],
      "largeThumbnail": null,
      "banner": null,
      "screenshots": [],
      "listed": false,
      "numComments": 0,
      "numRatings": 0,
      "avgRating": 0,
      "numViews": 0,
      "groupCategories": [],
      "scoreCompleteness": 33,
      "groupDesignations": null,
      "lastViewed": 1613148239000
    },
    {
      "id": "29ab35f5f86645bca93944a43a233bc9",
      "owner": "org_admin",
      "created": 1636486094142,
      "isOrgItem": true,
      "modified": 1636486094142,
      "guid": null,
      "name": "hurricanes_sub2_relational",
      "title": "hurricanes_sub2_relational",
      "type": "Feature Service",
      "typeKeywords": [
        "Data",
        "Service",
        "Feature Service",
        "ArcGIS Server",
        "Feature Access",
        "Hosted Service",
        "providerSDS"
      ],
      "description": "Hurricane information",
      "tags": [],
      "snippet": null,
      "thumbnail": null,
      "documentation": null,
      "extent": [],
      "categories": [],
      "spatialReference": null,
      "accessInformation": null,
      "licenseInfo": null,
      "culture": null,
      "properties": null,
      "advancedSettings": null,
      "url": "https://machine.domain.com/webadaptor/rest/services/Hosted/hurricanes_sub2_relational/FeatureServer",
      "proxyFilter": null,
      "access": "shared",
      "size": -1,
      "subInfo": 0,
      "appCategories": [],
      "industries": [],
      "languages": [],
      "largeThumbnail": null,
      "banner": null,
      "screenshots": [],
      "listed": false,
      "numComments": 0,
      "numRatings": 0,
      "avgRating": 0,
      "numViews": 0,
      "groupCategories": [],
      "scoreCompleteness": 33,
      "groupDesignations": null,
      "lastViewed": 1613148239000
    }
  ],
 "aggregations": {
    "counts": [
      {
        "fieldName": "groupCategories",
        "fieldValues": [
          {
            "value": "/categories",
            "count": 1
          },
          {
            "value": "/categories/water",
            "count": 1
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}