Indexing & content scope updates?

[Seangt]

We're looking at this feature because we'd like to replace Atomic Search to save some money. However, it doesn't look like there's been an update in 6 months or so based on the posts and blogs here. Any progress being made? Is this feature a priority for instructure?

Ideally this feature would search across all Canvas content including test questions and files, and have instant indexing of new/edited content.

So two questions:

1. is there a more specific timeline for content scope updates? 
2. How does indexing work for new & edited content? 

indexing is our biggest issue with Atomic Search. It requires a manual index update which takes a long time. So if you are using search to keep track of your course edits/building, it's almost useless because you can't make changes, then search again to check your progress. 

[jperkins · Accepted solution]

1. We are planning to add some additional scope to Smart Search in Q2. We're re-working some things on the backend to improve how/where we store indexed content. Indexing files is a top priority, but I am unsure when test questions will be included in the index.
2. We start indexing a course the first time Smart Search is launched within the course. When content is added or edited (and saved) in a Canvas course after that initial index, the change triggers a background job to index/re-index the content. Single content indexes should usually be updated almost instantly. If we are indexing a course with a ton of content for the first time, indexing all of the content may take longer as the background jobs can queue up, but even large courses will should index fairly quickly.

[Seangt]

Thorough answer that is also exactly what I was hoping to hear. Thank you!