SharePoint 2013 Search

Editor's Notes

• #5: SharePoint Search is the only facility that knows where all the data is in SharePointSharepoint farm is complex, with many sites, and users do not know how to find things in this environmentUsers turn to search as a first tool because of the complexityUsers don’t know how to ask the right questions
• #6: Show you how to ask the right questionsLearn to solve common problems/answer common questionsShow me my tasksShow me the corporate eventsShow me documents ive authoredYou will be able to do this!DEMO: Power of search
• #7: Here add slides of the following:The context is, your annual review just happened. Your boss isn’t too happy with your performance. She assigned you some tasks in SharePoint, to help you improve. You are so upset by your bad review, you can’t remember what she called the tasks or which list she put them in. You go to Search to start your hunt for tasks.Go to the search centerType in “Annual Review”– that seems like a good place to start.You get back a bunch of stuff, not too helpfulYou get back a task, let’s look inside it.It’s not yours, that task is for your boss to review you! This doesn’t seem right.Let’s try some keyword query language. Type “assignedTo = Brian Cox”** (this needs to be validated with Dad.)Ah-hah! Success. The task “Get your act together” appears, and that is definitely for you.Let’s go over how we do this. First, we will have to go over a few basics about search. Some of you may be familiar with these concepts, or this might be completely new.
• #8: The context is, your annual review just happened. Your boss isn’t too happy with your performance. She assigned you some tasks in SharePoint, to help you improve. You are so upset by your bad review, you can’t remember what she called the tasks or which list she put them in. You go to Search to start your hunt for tasks.Go to the search centerType in “Annual Review”– that seems like a good place to start.You get back a bunch of stuff, not too helpfulYou get back a task, let’s look inside it.
• #9: It’s not yours, that task is for your boss to review you! This doesn’t seem right.
• #11: Let’s try some keyword query language. Type “assignedTo :Brian”Ah-hah! Success. The task “Get your act together” appears, and that is definitely for you.Let’s go over how we do this. First, we will have to go over a few basics about search. Some of you may be familiar with these concepts, or this might be completely new.
• #12: The search service application is a service application inside of Central AdministrationInside the Search service application, you can manage content sources. Content sources point to various data repositories. This is how we actually get data into SharePoint.Part of managing content sources is setting what is called the crawl schedule. This determines how often the data repositories are crawled. “Crawling” a data source picks up information in the repositories. You can set the crawl schedule to pick up changes in the data source at various intervals. In SharePoint 2013, we have something new called continuous crawl. With continuous crawl, new data is available in search results in less than a minute.
• #13: Here add slides of the following:Home Page of Central AdministrationRed circle around/ zoom in on “Manage Service Applications”Service Applications pageRed circle/ zoom “Search Service Application”Mention that FAST and the familiar SharePoint Search have been merged in SharePoint 2013 (is “merged” the correct phrasing here?).Quick overview: See the topology, see the options on the left which we will go into more detail on.
• #14: Home Page of Central Administration
• #18: “Title” demo crawled propertiesHere add slides of the following:Same screenshot of Search administration home pageCircle/zoom on “Search Schema”Mention this is where your crawled and managed properties now live.Screen shot of the next screen.Circle the link to crawled properties (does the view default to crawled or managed?)Screen shot of crawled properties pageScreen shot of a bunch of crawled properties with the word “title” in them.Who knows what exactly these stand for? They aren’t friendly, not english-readable…they come from fields in the data repository, in this case SharePoint itself.The answer is….Managed Properties
• #19: When you click on Search Schema, Central Administration brings you to the page for Managed Properties. We will look at these later, so for now we will click on the link for Crawled Properties.Screen shot of a bunch of crawled properties with the word “title” in them.Who knows what exactly these stand for? They aren’t friendly, not english-readable…they come from fields in the data repository, in this case SharePoint itself.The answer is….Managed Properties
• #20: Why would we want managed properties to be mapped to multiple crawled properties? -When you are indexing multiple repositories, the repositories may all have a concept of a particular type of metadata, but may use different names for it -For instance, title -typically, the names of the fields inside of respositories are not friendly and can be very cryptic. -because we have the idea of a title but various names, you would have to perform separate searches against the crawled properties -so, instead we create the Managed Property “title” and map it to all the crawled properties which mean title. This is useful not only because the word “title” is user-friendly, but also because we can now perform 1 search against the managed property “title,” and thus search all the repositories looking for title-like metadata.Managed Properties can be mapped to crawled properties either in the Search Service Application or at the Site Collection level.Where you would create managed properties depends on the scope of the application you are creating.Site Columns automatically become managed properties in SharePoint 2013**should this be included? Too much info?
• #21: In SharePoint 2013, managed properties actually have their own properties. Here you can see a list of examples of these properties.These properties allow us to specify what the managed property can be used for. The ones we use most often are:Queryable- perform property-based searches, such as “title: dog”Refinable- use to filter out search results to achieve a tighter setRetrievable- can be returned in search results as a columnSearchable- not only can I use property based searches, but I can also use free textSortable- can be used to sort results. I.e. alphabetical, due-date, etc.
• #22: Can only be data-type textCannot be sortable or refinableIn order to overcome these limitations, SP provides some pre-defined managed properties to help you out. Refinable managed properties already made in case you need them.In SP2013 we can re-index sites and lists without performing a full-crawl of the entire Farm.You can re-index a specific list or site; makes it much easier to work with managed properties.(Not too complex- just mention)
• #23: “Title” demo Managed properties “remember the last demo, seaching for title in crawled properties?”Note the properties of managed propertiesSite Collection site actions site settings Site Collection Admin search schema managed properties pageSearch refinable for pre-defined refinable managed properties inside the site collectionUse these for KQL-------------------------------------------------------Here add slides of the following:Back to the same screenshot of default metadata properties pageRed circle/zoom on “Managed Properties”Point out the search boxScreen shot of the Managed Property “Title” which is nice and simple, easily understood.Screen shot of the crawled properties which it is mapped to---multiple crawled properties! So, when you leverage the managed property “title,” you get access to all the data inside multiple “title-based” fields which we saw in the crawled propertiesNote the properties of managed properties, which we just spoke about.Screen shot of the page when you click on a managed propertyScreen shot and red arrows of where you can change the properties of a managed property.So that’s great, Ashley, but you said my USERS could leverage this stuff. So far we have been in Central Admin, so what gives?That’s where KQL comes in!
• #24: In the same spot we were, under “Search Schema,” we will go to “Managed Properties” now.We can do a search for “Title,” just as we did in the crawled properties.When we do, we find more properties with more reasonable names- things we can understand. Look here we have JobTitle, SiteTitle, and simply “Title.”Back to the same screenshot of default metadata properties pageRed circle/zoom on “Managed Properties”Point out the search boxScreen shot of the Managed Property “Title” which is nice and simple, easily understood.Screen shot of the crawled properties which it is mapped to---multiple crawled properties! So, when you leverage the managed property “title,” you get access to all the data inside multiple “title-based” fields which we saw in the crawled propertiesNote the properties of managed properties, which we just spoke about.
• #25: Now, if we were to click on the Managed Property “Title,” we could go in a see it’s properties like this.We could change the name of the property, add a description, set the type (which is currently text)
• #26: Screen shot of the page when you click on a managed propertyScreen shot and red arrows of where you can change the properties of a managed property.So that’s great, Ashley, but you said my USERS could leverage this stuff. So far we have been in Central Admin, so what gives?That’s where KQL comes in!
• #27: (simply go over this slide)
• #28: A KQL query consists of combinations of these elements
• #30: Free-text KQL is the simplest, more familiar form of KQLType words and phrases into search1 word searches directly into searchMultiple word searches separated by a space, but enclosed in quotationsIn multiple words searches, search returns only the items in which the words are located next to each other
• #31: This is where Managed Properties come inMust specify the name of an existing managed property -out of box, default SharePoint managed properties -managed properties you create -must be “queryable” Use property restrictions to return specific items:-items authored by a particular person-items of file type docx-items with a specific file nameTypes of property operators: : “contains” =, >, <, <=, <>Also use Boolean operators to combine elements, such as items of file type docx authored by a particular person
• #32: Hyperlink Based solutions are quick but powerful answers for common business problemsRemember these three simple steps: 1) Run a KQL search 2) Grab the URL from the browser 3) Expose this URL as a hyperlink on a site.If you take nothing else away from this talk, you will still be doing powerful things exposing search results as a hyperlink!!
• #33: (Go over specifically which examples of KQL we are going to show. May need to show more or less, depending on our timing Saturday.)Here add slides of the following:Add slides of what we did in the CPT lab for creating a hyper-link based solution on a page.That’s great, Ashley, but in our solutions my users are comfortable navigating around SharePoint. Plus, I really don’t want to put all these random links on our pages.No problem- that’s where search navigation links come in! (is this the correct phrasing?)
• #37: Edit the pageCreate a new line, for instance at the bottom of the pageIn the ribbon, click the INSERT tabIn the insert tab, click LINK and choose FROM ADDRESSChoose display text, and paste the URL you copied into the Address box.Remember, Search is security trimmed. So, because I am logged in as Administrator I will be able to see all tasks. If I was logged in as Brian Cox, I would see only Brian’s tasks.That’s great, Ashley, but in our solutions my users are comfortable navigating around SharePoint. Plus, I really don’t want to put all these random links on our pages.No problem- that’s where search navigation links come in! (is this the correct phrasing?)
• #38: These are the Search Navigation Links. They represent scopes of information present in SharePointEach link points to a different Search Results page, customized for what is known as a “Result Source”Result Sources represent a particular type of information in SharePoint. These are the default links; sources, result pages, and result sources can be added and deleted to customize the user experience.Everything“/results.aspx”Brings the user back to where he or she can view all search resultsPeople“/peopleresults.aspx”View only People in SharePointConversations“/conversationsresults.aspx”View MySite Conversations, social interactions in SharePointVideos“/videoresults.aspx”View only items of type video
• #39: Use screen shots from the CPT lab to intersperse here. This slide can be broken up into at least 3-4 slides.
• #40: Note this construction is familiar to you from the work with hyperlink based solutions
• #45: Today we learned that although SharePoint farms are complex, SharePoint Search is knows where everything is.If you can learn to ask SharePoint search the right questions, you can leverage search to solve common problems in interesting and powerful ways