A document management system relies on metadata to enable effective search and retrieval of documents. If the search function fails to return known artefacts, it indicates a failure in maintaining appropriate metadata, such as tags, descriptions, or indexing attributes. The DAMA-DMBOK states: “Metadata is critical for enabling findability, accessibility, and usability of data assets. In document management systems, metadata such as document titles, keywords, or categories must be consistently maintained to support search functionality” (DMBOK2, Chapter 11: Metadata Management, p. 441).

Other options are less relevant: data quality metrics (A) focus on data accuracy, not search functionality; business intelligence (B) relates to analytics, not document retrieval; public access (C) is unrelated to search failures; and privacy procedures (E) address security, not search performance.