You can specify a time zone when searching for data, and Vault uses it to determine the boundaries of dates for displaying and exporting results.
Important: Search might produce unexpected results in some time zones. Learn more.
Because of the way messages are stored and accessed on Google servers, the send time of Gmail and Groups messages are rounded to the nearest hour. Thus a message sent, for example, at 11:30 PM on December 31 would be included in Vault a search that begins on January 1. This rounding doesn't affect your searches in Drive.
If your search includes dates, the search boundaries are as follows:
| Gmail and Groups | Drive | |
|---|---|---|
| Start | 11:30:00 PM (the previous day) |
12:00:00 AM |
| End | 12:29:59 AM (the next day) |
11:59:59 PM |
If you don't choose a time zone for your search, Vault uses the time zone reported by your computer.
Daylight saving time
You may need to adjust the time zone to accommodate daylight saving time changes. For example, if you're searching for files created by a user in New York:
-
Choose GMT-5 for all files created from December 1 to January 31 (standard time is in effect).
- Choose GMT-4 for all files created from June 1 to July 31 (daylight saving time is in effect).
An incorrect time zone can lead to incorrect search results
The time zone you choose can change search results. For example, if you're searching for messages from an employee in France (GMT+1), but your search uses the Pacific Time Zone (GMT-8), your effective search range from 4:00 PM on the day before your start date to 3:59 PM on your end date.
Depending on the needs of your organization and any legal requirements that must be satisfied by your search, you may want to consider:
- performing multiple searches if the data being searched was generated by users located in multiple time zones.
- using the time zone where the organization's headquarters is located if the person doing the search is located in a different time zone.
- using the time zone specified in a court order or other legal document related to the search.
- the time of year and whether you need to adjust the time zone to accommodate daylight saving time.
These are just examples used to illustrate how time zone can affect search output. Your organization must define its own search strategies to account for the impact of time zone and daylight saving time on search results.
Occasionally a search will generate errors:
- Vault can't search an account while its data is being synchronized. This is a temporary issue, and the data should be available in approximately 10 minutes. If accounts remain unavailable, contact us for assistance.
- Vault can't return search results when a wildcard search operator matches 100 or more words in a user's account. If this happens, refine your search terms to make the search more specific. For example, if subj:foo* produces too many matches, you might try searching for subj:food* (to find "food") and subj:foot* (to find "foot" and "football").
Use the count feature to assess the scope of a query before you run a Gmail or Groups search. Enter your search terms and click Count. After completing a count, Vault shows you:
- the number of accounts searched
- the amount of time required to complete the search
- the number of messages that match your query,
- the number of accounts that have matching messages.
Note: Messages can be counted twice. For example, if john@solarmora.com sends a message to jane@solarmora.com, Vault counts that message twice because it exists in both mailboxes. When a user sends a message to someone outside the domain, that message is counted only once.
You can download a CSV file that includes account and message totals for your query. This file includes:
- the date and time
- the query that generated the count
- the number of accounts searched
- the number of accounts that couldn't be searched
- the number of accounts with matching messages
- the email address and name for each account with matches
- the number of matching messages from each account