Blog Post

Microsoft Search Blog
1 MIN READ

Introducing Locations in Microsoft Search in Bing

Ryan Becker's avatar
Ryan Becker
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Nov 27, 2018

Maps and directions are a common intent for many enterprise searches. Many companies have more than one building and it's critical for businesses to provide a correct answer when employees search for a building location or directions within their organization.

 

As one of the more requested scenarios from our customers, today we are pleased to announce a new feature called, Locations. This feature enables enterprises to surface relevant buildings and places, pertinent to an individual enterprise, based on simple keywords you choose.

 


To get started, have your Microsoft Search in Bing admin to visit the admin portal and manage the locations for your O365 tenant. Below are the help documents if you'd like to learn more on how this works.

 


We have a few pointers while creating or using the locations features:

  1. When a new location is created, it will be available for search after 2 hours.
  2. Location is searchable using the Location name, Keywords and Reserved keywords. 


We welcome your feedback and questions.
Please reply to this article or ask your questions in Tech Communities or using the Feedback link from the business results.  

Updated Nov 27, 2018
Version 2.0
  • Some ETA when will be available outside US? Like EU customers?

  • Kazzan

     

    We don't have an ETA on expanding to other markets. Currently, MSB is available in specific markets and based on your message, it appears that your tenant doesn’t meet the requirements for MSB.

     

    Please visit the Microsoft Search for Bing explore page for instructions to enable MSB and if your tenant is not eligible, you will be presented an option to complete the request information on future Microsoft Search availability updates. We are monitoring the requests submitted and working towards increasing the product availability to countries based on interest.

     

  • Hi Raj, thanks. Yes, I am looking to availability in the Czech Republic. I am already trying to visit the setup page in the Admin Center.

     

    But you are not correct with your steps now. If you choose "Are you an IT admin?"  in https://www.bing.com/Business/explore you are redirected to home page of the admin center for Office 365, if you have turned on the new Preview of Admin Center. No correctly to Services section.

  • Kazzan  You are correct that with the new Preview mode the left navigation is not expanded. I will follow-up internally on this. 

     

    For others who are not seeing the Settings > Services & add-in, click on Show more on the navigation menu. 

     

  • David Noble's avatar
    David Noble
    Iron Contributor

    Really good feature!

    Is there a possibility we can view these locations on an Android app? Our remote staff would find it really useful when attending client sites.

  • David Noble

     

    MSB is available on both mobile devices and tablets. Using a browser application on the mobile device, visit bing.com/business to view the mobile version of MSB results. 

     

     

  • Heidi Connor's avatar
    Heidi Connor
    Copper Contributor

    This is a great feature, but I'm having difficulties resolving addresses that are not in North America or Europe. We have office locations in India, China, Nigeria, etc., and these addresses will not resolve. Are there plans to extend the reach of these maps?

  • amhernandez150's avatar
    amhernandez150
    Copper Contributor

    Can someone tell me if this feature also works with a specific utterance (e.g., "where is") in order to aid search? Or is it solely based on key word?