How to Search for Items in Ninety
If you know an item exists but can't remember which tool or team it lives in, use the global search bar at the top of every page in Ninety. Type part of the item's title, and Ninety returns matching Rocks (your 90-day priorities), Milestones, To-Dos, and Issues from every team you're a member of — then takes you straight to the one you pick. Searching is available to every role (Owner, Admin, Manager, Coach, Observer, and Team Member) on every plan, in the Ninety web app.
Search never shows you anything you couldn't already open. Results are filtered by your role and team access before they're ranked, so what you find is exactly what you already have permission to see.
What you can search for
The search bar matches the titles of four item types:
Rocks — your quarterly 90-day priorities.
Milestones — the checkpoints that ladder up to a Rock.
To-Dos — both team and private To-Dos assigned to you.
Issues — short-term and long-term.
A few things to know about how matching works:
Titles only. Search doesn't look inside descriptions, comments, or attachments.
Partial matches count. You don't need the exact title — typing a few words from it is enough, and close-but-not-exact spellings still return results.
Active items only. Archived and deleted items don't appear in search results.
To find an item you've archived, open the archive view inside its own tool — for example, the Archive tab on the Rocks page, or the archive toggle on the Issues page.
Other areas of Ninety aren't searchable from the top navigation yet, including the Scorecard, Headlines, the V/TO®, the Accountability Chart, and meeting notes. The Knowledge Portal has its own dedicated search.
How to search from any page
The search bar sits in the top navigation on every page, to the left of the notification bell and the Create button.
To find an item:
Click the Search box in the upper-right corner of any page.
Type part of the item's title.
Review the results in the Results for window that opens.
Click a type tab — Rocks, Milestones, Issues, or To-Dos — to narrow the list, or stay on All to see everything.
Click the result you want.
To clear a search, click the X in the search box. To close the results without going anywhere, click the X in the upper-right corner of the results window.
How your results are organized
Results open in a window headed Results for your search term, with a row of tabs across the top. Each tab shows how many matches it found, so you can see the shape of your results before reading any of them: All, Rocks, Milestones, Issues, and To-Dos.
Every result shows the item's title and a badge naming the team it belongs to. The detail line underneath changes by item type:
Rocks show the number of Milestones, the owner, and the due date.
Milestones show the Rock they belong to, the owner, and the due date.
Issues show whether they're Short-Term or Long-Term, and the owner.
To-Dos show the owner and the due date.
A tab showing 0 means there are no matches of that type — for example, To-Dos 0 tells you nothing in your To-Dos matched, without you having to check.
What happens when you click a result
Clicking a result takes you to the item in context rather than showing it in a preview. Three things happen at once:
The tool that owns the item opens.
The item's details panel opens, so you land on the item itself.
The Team dropdown switches to the team that owns the item.
For example, if you're on the Rocks page and click an Issue in your search results, Ninety opens the Issues page, opens that Issue's details panel, and switches the Team dropdown to that Issue's team.
That team switch is intentional. Because search spans every team you belong to, the tool you land on has to change teams to show you the item you asked for. If you were working in a different team before you searched, use the Team dropdown to switch back.
To open a result in a new browser tab instead — keeping your current page as it is — click the open-in-new-tab icon at the right end of the result's row.
How permissions affect your results
Search applies your existing access before it returns anything. Each tool filters results using the same rules it already uses, so search widens what you can find, never what you can see.
In practice, that means:
You'll see items from every team you're a member of, and only those teams.
Items on teams you don't belong to won't appear, including private teams you're not a member of.
Private To-Dos appear only for the person they're assigned to.
Observers can find items, and their read-only access still applies once they open one.
No role can use search to reach an item they couldn't already open by navigating to it directly.
How the search bar differs from a tool's search box
Ninety has two kinds of search, and both are available at the same time. Individual tools keep the search box that filters the list you're looking at.
The global search bar is the box in the top navigation. It looks across Rocks, Milestones, To-Dos, and Issues at once, spans every team you belong to, and navigates you to whatever you click.
A tool's search box — such as Search Rocks on the Rocks page — filters the list already on your screen. It covers only that tool, only the team currently selected in the Team dropdown, and leaves you on the page you're already on.
Use the top-navigation search bar when you don't know where something lives. Use the tool's own search box when you're already in the right place and want to narrow a long list.
Troubleshooting
An item you know exists doesn't appear in your search results.
Check whether the item was archived. Search covers active items only — open the tool's archive view to find an archived item.
Check that the item is one of the four types the search bar covers — Rocks, Milestones, To-Dos, and Issues.
Search for words from the item's title. Text that appears only in the description or comments won't match.
Confirm you're a member of the team that owns the item. Items on teams you don't belong to are never returned.
Confirm the item wasn't deleted. Deleted items never appear in search results.
If the issue persists, contact support.
Your search returns no results at all.
Try a shorter search — one or two distinctive words from the title rather than the whole thing.
Check the spelling of any names or terms unique to your company.
Clear the box with the X and search again.
If the issue persists, contact support.
Your team changed after you clicked a search result.
This is expected. Opening an item from search switches the tool to that item's team so the item is visible.
Use the Team dropdown to switch back to the team you were working in.
To avoid switching next time, click the open-in-new-tab icon at the right end of the result row instead.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Can I search across all of my teams at once?
Yes. The global search bar covers every team you're a member of in a single search, which is the main difference between it and the search box inside an individual tool. Each result carries a badge naming the team it belongs to, so you can tell at a glance where an item lives.
Does search look inside item descriptions?
No. The search bar matches item titles only. Text in a description, a comment, or an attachment won't return a match, so search using words you'd expect to find in the item's name.
Can I search for archived items?
No. The search bar covers active items only — archived and deleted items don't appear in your results. To find something you've archived, open the archive view inside its own tool, such as the Archive tab on the Rocks page or the archive toggle on the Issues page.
Can other people find my private items through search?
No. Search applies each tool's existing permissions before returning results. Private To-Dos are returned only to the person they're assigned to, and items belonging to teams you aren't a member of are never returned to you — regardless of anyone's role.
Do I need a specific plan to use the search bar?
No. The global search bar is available on every Ninety plan and to every role — Owner, Admin, Manager, Coach, Observer, and Team Member. There's nothing to turn on.
Can I search from the mobile app?
The global search bar is available in the Ninety web app. Individual tools in the mobile app keep their own search boxes.