Forum Discussion
Sharepoint Search Functionality
Morning,
An urgent one, I need to have this sorted by Friday afternoon,
We have various SharePoint libraries within our environment but one of them has a really poor search function when looking for documents. When you search for something within the library it displays everything in alphabetical and not in relevancy, meaning it doesn't show items with the word in at the top. It also searches through the entire SharePoint environment instead of just the library I'm searching through.
I would like to either edit or add a new search function to add custom filters such as created, created by, add a thumbnail etc. Aswell as making sure it is only searching within the library I specify. I am not familiar with the backend of SharePoint so any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Hi DylanBrown
To improve the search functionality in your SharePoint library and address the issues you mentioned, you can follow these steps:
Customizing the Search Results Page: SharePoint allows you to customize the search results page, where you can modify how the search results are displayed. You can sort the results by relevancy, add custom filters, and enhance the overall user experience.
Creating Managed Properties: To enable custom filtering and sorting, you need to create managed properties for the specific metadata you want to filter by (e.g., "Created Date," "Created By," etc.). Managed properties help in making the data searchable and sortable in a more meaningful way.
Customizing Search Queries: SharePoint uses search queries to retrieve data. You can customize these queries to ensure that the search only happens within the library you specify. This will prevent the search from scanning the entire SharePoint environment and restrict the results to the targeted library.
Configuring Search Schema: The search schema defines how SharePoint interprets the content and its metadata. By configuring the search schema, you can map crawled properties to managed properties, which is essential for making your custom filters work correctly.
Reindexing the Library: After making changes to the search functionality, it's essential to reindex the specific library to ensure that the changes take effect. Reindexing will refresh the search index and include any new or modified managed properties.
Testing and User Training: Before deploying the changes to production, it's vital to test the search functionality thoroughly to ensure it meets your requirements. Also, consider providing user training or documentation on how to use the new search features effectively.
To achieve all these customizations, you may need assistance from someone familiar with SharePoint's backend, such as a SharePoint developer or administrator. If you have an IT department or SharePoint experts within your organization, it's best to reach out to them for help with this urgent task.
Remember to perform these customizations in a test or development environment before applying them to the production environment to avoid any unintended consequences. Once you are satisfied with the changes, you can deploy them to your live SharePoint environment.
- Hi Lalit,
Thanks for helping with this, I managed to figure out the backend myself and got it working in time which is great. Our 3rd party IT company couldnt assist so thought I'd ask on here.
I've made a note of the things you mentioned to further refine what I have set up, thanks for jumping on this.DylanBrown - are you able to share what you did to resolve this? Our tenant is now performing th same way with search returning alphabetical vs by relevance.
