Site columns not in Crawled Properties - not a 365 group Team site

[Ingeborg Hawighorst]

Hi, I can't figure this out.

Weeks ago, I created a new team site from the Admin Portal, using the "Team Site without an Office 365 group". I then

• created site columns
• created libraries
• added the site columns to the libraries
• migrated content with ShareGate
• let the site get indexed
• configured a result source for a particular library to limit site search to include only that library

The regular search now works fine and when I search I get results from that library only. That means that the site and the libraries have been indexed.

Now, I would like to use the modern Search Web Part and configure search refiners. Before I can do that, I need to map the Crawled Properties to Managed Properties. But when I go to Site Collection > Search Schema and hunt around the Crawled Properties, none of the site columns I created (weeks ago) are in there.

Note, this is a Modern site, but NOT linked to an O365 group, so the workaround to add your account to the Site Collection Administrators and then do a re-index does not apply. I already AM a site collection admin.

Why do the site columns not appear in the Crawled Properties? There is nothing I recognize. The site column names I used are quite specific, like "DocumentID". This site column, for e.g. is in three libraries, and each have content,  but there is no Crawled property in the over 400 that has that string anywhere in its name.

What do I need to do to get the site columns into the Crawled Properties, so I can continue with my search web part config?

[#2]

@Ingeborg Hawighorst , I guess there are values in these added columns that you want to get crawled? 

So other things to validate (I know they are obvious by I can't see other scenarios):

- Make sure documents are published if using draft (if new column values have been populated and document not published after)

- If you create a new site column in another site library, does it work? (just to see if the issue is related to your site)

- If it is still not working, have you tried to put your account in the site collection admin just in case it would also affect sites not attached to M365 groups?

If nothing is working maybe there is an issue with the crawling service....

[#3]

I've opened a ticket with Microsoft Support. The site search can in fact access managed properties based on the site columns, but it looks like these crawled and managed properties are not getting propagated back to the database that runs the search schema where the refinable managed properties can be edited.

The support engineer is taking the issue back to the product group.

I'll post the outcome once I hear back.

[#4]

Was this ever resolved? There seem to be many issues with managed properties in modern sites - including those not connected to a group. I'm able to map the crawled properties to a predefined managed property (Refinablexxxxxxx) but the managed property isn't available in search/highlighted content web parts.