In the Pipeline Pilot Admin Portal under Setup -> Catalog Settings, you can define a schedule for updating the Catalog Index. This index is used when searching for protocols and components in either the Pipeline Pilot Pro Client or in the Admin Portal under Reports -> Catalog Search.
Newly added Protocols or Components are only found by a search after they have been added to the index, i.e. after a synchronization has been run. But if a protocol or Component is removed, it is not enough to update the index as this will only add new objects.
If a Protocol or Component has been removed, they will still be found by a Catalog Search. To make sure that objects that no longer exists are removed from the catalog index, administrators should check the "Clear Catalog Before Sync" option and run the synchronization once in a while. Note that this option will make the synchronization take significantly longer so you might not want to use this option for every synchronization.