- SEARCH HELP CENTER
- Getting Started
- Using Filters
GETTING STARTED
Using Filters
Filters are the best way to narrow down results on illumis. They can remove false positives and focus your search on the records that matter most. Below are some tips & tricks for the most common filters:
The Exact Phrase Filter
This “Exact Phrase” Filter will narrow search results to only records containing a specific word or phrase.
For example, entering “1600 Pennsylvania Ave” will limit results to only records including that address.
An important note: not all sources include address information. If you add an exact phrase filter for the home address of an individual, it may exclude some records that don’t have address information as well as records which may use an individual’s business address instead.
“Including Any of These Words” Filter
The “Including Any of These Words” filter is useful if you know a number of data points about a search subject and want to narrow results without excluding records that might be missing one (or more) of those data points.
For example, if you are searching for the common name of “Robert James” you could use this filter to focus on only records that contain any of the following:
- The name of his hometown
- A middle name
- A year of birth
- An associated business name
Even if a record is missing one of these points of information, illumis will still return records containing any of the others.
“Excluding any of these words” Filter
The “excluding and of these words” filter is a great tool for weeding out false positives that might be coming up over and over again. For example, if you are searching for a “Tom Hanks” who isn’t the well-known actor, try adding terms and data points here like the movie star’s middle name “Jeffery” or his birth year to remove search results for the more-famous Tom Hanks.
Filtering within a Source
Sometimes, there might be just one source that has a large number of false positives or there may be a need to quickly search within a single source’s results. Rather than applying a filter to an entire search, a simple filter box is available the heading of every source by clicking the triangle icon.