Classic vs Modern and More Microsoft Search Questions Answered
Over the past several weeks we've had a number of community questions on classic vs modern search in relationship to SharePoint and Microsoft Search across social channels, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, etc. and here in the Microsoft Search community. We've selected the most common questions and have created the Q&A below to help answer those. As Microsoft continues to invest in modern experiences, including search, will existing SharePoint search administration options, such as Query Rules, Schema, Dictionaries, Type-Ahead Suggestions, etc. be deprecated over time or made available in Microsoft Search administration? As we continue the journey of modernizing classic search experiences across SharePoint and other Microsoft Search endpoints, we’ll transition their configuration options (where supported with Microsoft Search) to the unified Microsoft Search admin center in addition to their programmatic model where applicable. Microsoft Search is a cohesive search experience across Microsoft 365 and Bing so does not have affinity to a specific endpoint, such as SharePoint, but shares it’s underlying capabilities across Microsoft 365 apps and services. As a singular search experience across Microsoft 365, configuration options for search will move to the unified search admin console as well as “cleaning up” the search settings when in SharePoint context. Will there be changes to the web parts available to the “classic search” experience as search is modernized and transitioned to Microsoft Search? As Microsoft Search continues to roll out across Microsoft 365 we’ll modernize web parts in conjunction. For example, the Hightlighted Content web part will get an advanced capability to allow the use of KQL and CAML directly. This will help solve a lot of user configured roll-up scenarios. Secondly we are investing in making the modern search result page customizable in terms of custom verticals and the ability to add more refiners. We are also investing in an alternative to display templates, using adaptive cards, which will first arrive for the new custom connectors. If you however need full flexibility on how to display results you may as an example use the PnP Modern Search web parts configuring the search box on a site to land on that page, as announced at SPC. Are there plans to introduce classic search replacements for Refiners, Search Bar, and Display Templates? We are working on providing the capability for custom verticals, custom refiners and the use of adaptive cards for the modern search result page. Is it possible to ingest on-premises content into Microsoft Search, such as the ServiceNow examples shown at Microsoft Build in May 2019? ServiceNow is an example of external data being indexed into Microsoft Search using the new connector framework announced at Build and SPC. Any on-premises content or line of business content can be indexed the same way, much in the way hybrid search works today. Expect a number of connectors coming from Microsoft to support file servers, sql databases and SharePoint, as well as partner offerings. Near term, if using SharePoint on-premises, the cloud search service application (hybrid search) can be used to index across on-premises content and brought into Office 365. As Microsoft Search is a cohesive search experience across Microsoft 365, providing data can be brought into one or more endpoints, as described above, it will be available to Microsoft Search. For additional information on these approaches see also https://resources.techcommunity.microsoft.com/connecting-your-data-into-search-and-services/. I read there is a 20M document limit for documents index using the cloud search service application (hybrid search) with SharePoint on-premises. The limit is not 20 million, but there is a limit depending on the licensing and volume you have available in the tenant. Via a service request this number can be increased today. Is Microsoft Search what had been called Bing for Business? Microsoft Search in Bing (formerly known as Bing for Business) is one of Microsoft Search’ endpoints along with SharePoint, Office.com, Outlook, OneDrive, etc. For ingestion the new connector framework is the way forward, and a new query api is being built via the Microsoft Graph. Is there a relationship between the Microsoft Search pipeline and Microsoft Graph? Yes. Indexing and query will be provided via Microsoft Graph APIs. Will it be possible to ingest content from non-Microsoft sources and enrich that content? Any enriching can be done on the custom connector side before the data is ingested into the Microsoft Search search index. How does Microsoft Search fit within the context of Enterprise Search? Microsoft Search is an Enterprise Search solution. With the new investments to easier ingest your own content, and taking advantage of machine learning across all workloads in the Microsoft Graph to provide best of breed ranking of results for the individual, we believe that if you are using Office 365 as one of your primary data sources, then using Microsoft Search will make it easier for your end-users to get a unified search experience on all their data, across all devices. We are investing in providing the same search results in all user experiences, that be bing.com, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Office applications like Word, Excel and PowerPoint, from your Windows 10 desktop search, or from any mobile device. Bill Baer Senior Product Manager Search & AI Mikael SvensonSearch box changes in modern SharePoint and OneDrive experiences
We wanted to make sure that the community is aware of some UX changes coming to the search box on modern OneDrive and SharePoint experiences! These are part of the changes we had announced as part of Message Center post published on March 28 (MC176702), and then talked about in our blog posts at Build and SharePoint conferences this month. The changes we are detailing below are already rolled out to Targeted Release users and tenants. So if you are part of the Targeted Release program, you should already be using these updated experiences. The major experience change is the removal of the search box in modern experiences from where it was in the site header in communication sites, or the command bar in team sites. A new search box connecting our users to Microsoft Search will be shown at the top of the page in the suite header instead, and provide a consistent place to access search functionality. Similar changes are rolling out to other experiences across Office 365: Office.com, Office desktop applications, Outlook on the web, etc. SharePoint start page shown after the search box move The change will affect the following modern experiences: SharePoint start page (formerly known as SharePoint home). This is the page you are taken to when you click on "SharePoint" in the suite navigation control. Modern SharePoint sites, including modern site pages, document libraries, lists, and the site contents page. OneDrive for Business. Classic sites/experiences will not be affected by this update. The search boxes on classic pages will continue to work as they currently do. We will provide an update to classic experiences later this year. This change will be announced using message center posts as well as this community. Hub site with the Microsoft Search search box - scoped to search across the hub This update will take effect without requiring any action from you. The functionality provided by the new search box includes personalized suggestions in addition to functionality provided by the previous search box. We are planning to roll out these updates to our customers in Production over the coming weeks during the month of June. Note: During our rollout to Targeted Release, we have heard from a small number of customers who had customized the search box experiences and had adverse effects. If you have customized your search box, please ensure that you test the changes using Targeted Release users in your tenant to make sure that you are not negatively affected. If you see negative effects, follow this link and tell us more about it.The new Microsoft Search Work Vertical
Microsoft Search recently announced the release of a major addition to Windows Search designed and created for workplace search: the Work vertical. The Work vertical is a new dedicated canvas for quick and reliable organization-wide search in Windows Search. It’s tailored for workplace search and work results are a click away and always visible. It provides a coherent, complete, and consistent search experience, bringing together Microsoft 365 and third-party data. It simplifies the overall workplace search experience and improves the discoverability of relevant work results with easy and reliable navigation by providing a quick and transient way for users to complete the task. What are some ways you think the new Work Vertical will help you quickly locate the search results you expect and need?Microsoft Search usage reports updates
The latest blog post, What’s new for Microsoft Search Usage reports, starts with the excited line" You’ve wanted to know how well search works for your organization. Microsoft Search usage reports have the data!" The new announced updates include Pivot total search queries on additional dimensions and the much-anticipated Microsoft Graph connector analytics. The new Microsoft Graph connectors introduced a dedicated section for connection analytics to show the contribution of connectors to overall search queries. How do you plan to use these new features and usage reports within your organization and what data are you planning to collect with these updates?Meet the Microsoft search team at Microsoft Ignite
Microsoft Ignite is just 26 days away and we have a full slate of sessions, activities, events, and opportunities for you to learn more about Microsoft search, meet the team behind it, and get answers to your toughest questions. We're very excited about our presence at Ignite this year as we have A LOT to announce! As such, we anticipate you might want to meet with us to go deeper than what we might cover in our sessions. With that said, we're pleased to offer side meeting opportunities to our customers and partners. If you would like to have a side meeting with our team, please fill out the request form at https://aka.ms/meetsearch so your nomination can be considered. Do this soon as schedules will fill fast!
New: Graph connector for Atlassian Jira (cloud)
Hello everyone, I am excited to announce the preview launch of Microsoft Graph connector for Atlassian Jira. With the new connector, your organization will be able to index Jira issues or tickets available in Jira cloud instance. Using the connector, tenant admins can enable employees to discover Jira issues from any of Microsoft Search endpoints like SPO/Bing/Office.com, as illustrated below. The connector will shortly be available for private preview. Register on the form to get early access. To learn more about Microsoft Graph connectors, refer Microsoft Graph connectors overview.Problems with Microsoft and SharePoint Online Search
I'm struggling to solve a couple of problems I have with Microsoft Search (and SharePoint Search) on my tenant. Search usage information I am not seeing any data in the Search and intelligence admin 'Insights' screen except for Impression distribution by result type. The SharePoint Usage Reports (e.g. Top queries by month) are only showing an average of about 60 queries per month, most with 'query text' that includes the URL of the site collection where I gather the search has been started but not including the actual term the end user entered. We are quite a large organisation so I find it hard to believe only 60 or so searches are being performed. I am wondering if there are any settings that are only accessible to Global admin (I'm only SharePoint and Search Admin) that may be preventing the search usage reporting from working correctly? I have searched extensively through Microsoft Docs but can't find anything to indicate this is the case. Bookmarks/Promoted results I have set up Bookmarks with Microsoft Search and Promoted results in SharePoint Query rules. However guest users on my tenant are not seeing these. Laura Kokkarinen wrote an https://laurakokkarinen.com/sharepoint-online-guest-user-troubles-and-how-to-get-past-them/#search-api-queries-dont-work-for-guest-users-from-communication-sites several years ago suggesting that guests not being able to see search results were due to them not having permissions in the search centre. I have checked this on my tenant but our guests do have the appropriate permissions. I'm at my wits end with these two issues. I thought I'd check with the community to see if others have the same problems and/or have found solutions prior to raising a formal issue. Update 04/21/2021 - I got impatient and logged a ticket with Microsoft Support about the Search & Intelligence 'Insights' data. The answer I received was: Right now, https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Foffice.com%2F&data=04%7C01%7CJenny.Bruce%40environment.gov.au%7C1e09df7ebfe644026d1b08d903d81544%7C78f05d85d6b34eeba5c3948d2dcdae8a%7C0%7C0%7C637545048872455697%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=lJNp9eGbj3KTBp5ZK4sHFcdFijLUcvbaXERmlL3d0TY%3D&reserved=0 and SPHome canvases are the only locations where these queries will be counted. The feature is just rolling out so it may take time to accrue historical data For various reasons we have not yet implemented SPHome on our tenant, so that's the explanation for one part of the issues I'm having. If anyone else has any experience with the other problems I've outlined in this post I would be grateful for your advice.Microsoft Search Bookmarks - Tenant / Bing presentation different - WHY??
Hi Everyone, Can anyone help me with the following: Microsoft Search Bookmarks are presented differently in Modern SharePoint Tenant search results and Bing Work results. My question is two fold - Why? - Is there a way to get Modern SharePoint Tenant results to display Microsoft Search Bookmarks as they are displayed on Bing Work results ?? Bing work displays each bookmark separately, SharePoint mashes the different bookmarks together.
