Overview:
When performing an Enterprise Vault (EV) Compliance Accelerator (CA) or Discovery Accelerator (DA) search, the search results can return unexpected hits.  Typically, this is due to the search criteria having some unexpected terms included in the search.  One cause of unexpected search terms is when a search phrase has been added by using the copy and paste process from programs that automatically use smart quotes.  Smart quotes are commonly enabled by applications such as Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word automatically changes straight quotation marks ( ' or " ) to curly (smart or typographer's) quotes as you type.

CA and DA recognizes smart quotes as another character instead of as quotes.  Example 1: when searching for "Prohibited" using smart quotes, CA and DA search for the entire string, including the smart quotes instead of the word Prohibited.  As a result, the words intended to be searched for may not be found.  In many cases, the search will return zero hits.  Example 2: searching for a phrase such as "to be approached" using smart quotes will cause the following terms to be searched"
- "to
- be
- approached"
In such instances, the words between the double quoted words would be found, with the very likely possibility of hits being irrelevant to the search.


Solution:
Use straight quotes around the word or phrase in the CA or DA search criteria.

Note: To turn smart quotes off in Microsoft Word, see Microsoft KB article 206165.