Tag Archives: Search

Microsoft 365 Search: built-in people search by nickname

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Did Microsoft silently implement nickname search?

E.g.

I have created a user “Robert Dylan” and never used name “Bob”, but search understands that I’m looking for Robert Dylan when I’m searching for Bob or Bob Dylan or Bobby.

Important thing – result is shown under “All” and “People” verticals.

I know Microsoft claimed m365 search is backed by Turing technology – it understands you, answers your question but not just blindly display keyword occurences (announcement at Ignite Spring, more on Ignite Fall 2021)… So is that it?

But the same trick did not work with Dick for Richard or (of course) Syd for Roger Barrett:

Please check “How to configure Microsoft 365 People Search by Nickname and Full Name“

Using Path property in Microsoft 365 Search Query

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Using Path property in Microsoft 365 Search Query was kind of ambiguous. But now Microsoft implemented update and clarified some details. So below are some tips and tricks on filtering by site Url (path) in query field in Microsoft 365 Search verticals.

Path filter with trailing slash (“/”)

In November 2022 Microsoft rolled out an update for multiple search features, including checks on the path managed property for a trailing slash. Previously path filters were valid with and without trailing slashes.

Consider the following scenario.

Given the path filter with the contain operator (“:”) 

Path:https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/MySite

These path could be matched with:

Path:https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/MySite
Path:https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/MySite/subsite
Path:https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/MySite2
Path:https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/MySite2/subsite
Path:https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/MySite3

Obviously, the match intent is unclear. Adding a trailing slash clarifies that only MySite (and below) matches. So intended matches would be only:

Path:https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/MySite
Path:https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/MySite/subsite

Using SPSiteUrl property

The other option – use the SPSiteUrl property with the full path:

SPSiteUrl:https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/MySite

SPSiteUrl and Path properties use different matching strategies. When using contains operator (colon sign “:”) – SPSiteUrl will match the full value, while Path will do a “starts with” match.

DepartmentId

DepartmentId is a search managed property used under Hub sites and propagated through all associated sites content.

That means if we want to scope down search to hub site with it’s content – we can use DepartmentId property, e.g.

DepartmentId=4965d9be-929b-411a-9281-5662f5e09d49

instead of iteration through all hub sites and using path: property.

Microsoft 365 Retention Policies SharePoint Adaptive Scopes Advanced Query

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Basic query is available as GUI:

where you can use objects: “Site Url”, “Site Name” and “Refinable String 0″..”Refinable String 99”. Conditions would be “is equal to”, “is not equal to”, “starts with” and “not starts with”. Or you can select “Advanced query builder” and enter KQL query.

Advanced query builder

Advanced query builder allows us to use more site properties then “Site Url”, “Site Name” and “Refinable Strings” and more conditions than “is (not) equal to” and “(not) starts with”.

E.g. we can use “Title”, “Created”, “Modified” site properties and “=”,”:”,”<“, “>”, “<=”, “>=” conditions.

Working queries examples: 

created>=2022-07-21
modified>1/31/2023
created>12/31/2021 AND modified>=7/31/2022
created<=2020-11-15 OR modified>2023-02-06 (?)
created<=2020-1-15 OR modified>2023-01-31 (?)
created<=11/15/2020 OR modified>1/31/2023
title:test
SiteTitle:test
RefinableString09:Test*
RefinableString09<>Test
RefinableString09=Birding AND RefinableString08<>Included

Not working queries examples:

site:https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/test* 
RefinableString11 = Birds # (do not use spaces in advanced query)
Path:https://contoso-my.sharepoint.com
Template:STS
Template:"SITEPAGEPUBLISHING#0"
Template:SITEPAGEPUBLISHING*
? RefinableString09<>Birding AND RefinableString08:Official
modified>31/1/2023 (should be like modified>2023-01-31
)

Query against custom site property (aka property bag value)

You can create custom site property and assign value to the property with
Set-PnPAdaptiveScopeProperty or Set-PnPPropertyBagValue.
Property must be with “Indexed” parameter. Once the property is set up, m365 search crawls site and creates crawled property. Then you map crawled property to some pre-created refinable string managed property. You can assign alias to this managed property.

In my test scenario I used RefinableString09 with alias SiteCustomSubject.

Site property valueQueryresult
BirdingRefinableString09:Birddoes not work
BirdingSiteCustomSubject:Birddoes not work
BirdingRefinableString09:Bird*works
BirdingSiteCustomSubject:Bird*does not work
BirdingRefinableString09:Birdingworks
BirdingSiteCustomSubject:Birdingdoes not work
BirdingRefinableString09:Birding*works
BirdingRefinableString09=Birdingworks
BirdingRefinableString09=Birddoes not work
BirdingRefinableString09=Bird*does not work
BirdingSiteCustomSubject=Birdingdoes not work
RefinableString09<>Birdingworks
RefinableString09=Birding AND RefinableString08<>Includedworks

Query against multi-value property.

Site property valueQueryresult
TestA TestBRefinableString09:TestAworks
TestA TestBRefinableString09 = ‘TestA TestB’does not work
TestA TestB??? RefinableString09=’Test10 Test5′does not work
TestA TestBRefinableString09:TestB ?
TestA,TestBRefinableString09:Test*works
TestA,TestBRefinableString09=Test*does not work
TestA,TestBRefinableString09:Testdoes not work
TestA,TestB
TestA;TestB
TestB TestA
TestA TestB		RefinableString09:TestBworks
TestA, TestB
TestB,TestA
TestA TestB		RefinableString09=TestAdoes not work
TestA,TestB(basic) RefinableString09 starts with testworks

Some more findings

Modify adaptive scope

If you need to modify adaptive scope – you’d better delete it and create a new one. The reason – if you want to validate what sites are included in scope with GUI – via button “Scope details” – you want to see only sites that are in scope, but that’s not the case when you modify the scope, because if you modify the scope – you’d see sites that are not in scope with “Removed” status.

Alternatively you can use filter to filter out removed from scope sites.

what else?

What is the takeaway from this for SharePoint administrators? We would be asked to configure SharePoint the way compliance…

References

Adaptive scopes Retention Policies Data Lifecycle Purview

PowerShell scripts for Microsoft 365 SharePoint

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After many years working with SharePoint I wrote a lot of PowerShell scripts that help me support, troubleshoot, administer and secure SharePoint. So I’m sharing my scripts with you.

It’s here: https://github.com/VladilenK/Manage-m365-with-PowerShell

Manage result layouts for SharePoint results in Microsoft Search

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Microsoft is improving Search (MC489165):

Manage result layouts for SharePoint results in Microsoft Search

We’re making changes to Microsoft Search. This update will allow Microsoft Search administrators to change result layouts for select SharePoint content using adaptive cards with Result Type feature in Microsoft Search administration.

The default result layouts for SharePoint sites, pages, list items and Portable document format (PDF) results can now be replaced with layouts built using adaptive cards. The changes can be made for Organization level search applicable to Office.com and SharePoint home as well as site level search on SharePoint sites. Changes for Microsoft Search in Bing will be rolled out soon. Note that the feature does not support changing of Office file search results.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 81952

Before the change, when you add a new result type under “Search and intelligence” Customizations – it looked like this:

result type content sources

So there was no built-in “SharePoint” content source as an option – only custom “external” data sources.

But with the new feature implemented list of content sources for the result type will look like this:

SharePoint and OneDrive content source

If you choose “SharePoint and OneDrive” content source – the next option would be to select type of content:

Select type of content and set rules

You also can create different result types for different types of content based on properties-based rules (e.g. one result type for all sites – and a separate result type for a specific site or hub) with optional “Set rules for this type of content”:

Default site result experience would look like

Search results with modified SharePoint result type might look like:

When you modify template via Layout Designer – it is essential to know available object properties.

You can get properties from the “Available properties” below – there is also search through properties feature.

Or you can use SharePoint Search Query Tool to get metadata on search results.

It might take hours and even days for your search to start showing new layouts, but “&cacheClear=true” should help.

DepartmentId 

If your sites are organized in hierarchy under Hub site – you can use DepartmentId managed property to include all hub-associated sites content

DepartmentId is just a hub site Id

… to be continued …

References

clearCache or cacheClear

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Each time we need to validate a recent change in Microsoft Search configuration, we need to use query parameter that clears cache, and each time I’m not sure is it clearCache or cacheClear 🙂

So, correct is “cacheClear=true”, e.g:

https://www.office.com/search/sites?auth=2&cacheClear=true&q=bird*

Reference:

Microsoft 365 People Search by Nickname and Full Name

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Scenario

Nickname (or alias or moniker or hypocorism etc.) is some another name – usually shorter than original name and widely used in maybe all countries in the world. E.g. Bob is a nickname for Robert in the US and GB, Checo is the other name for Sergio in Mexico. There might be personal names also – e.g. Bapu (father) is an word that is usually associated with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also known as the Mahatma Gandhi. More examples: David “Noodles” Aaronson, Roger Keith “Syd” Barrett etc.

In Microsoft 365 we want to search for a person’s name we know – and in many cases it’s a nickname – e.g. Beth (Bethany) or Alex (Alexander). Can m365 search do that?

Unfortunately, not… At least at 19:38 on 2023-03-30
… though please check Microsoft 365 Search: built-in people search by nickname.

Solution

It takes a few steps to implement search by nickname:

  • create a custom property under SharePoint Online User Profiles service
  • fill this property with values
  • configure Search Schema – map crawled property to managed property

Step-by-Step

Create a custom property under SharePoint Online User Profiles service

  • Ensure you have a SharePoint Administrator role activated
  • Navigate to SharePoint Admin Center – more features – User Profiles – Manage user properties – New Property
  • Configure custom property according to your needs,
    – ensure “Policy Settings” “Default Privacy Setting:” Everyone is selected
    – ensure “Search Settings” “Indexed” is selected

Fill SharePoint Online User Profile Properties with values

That would be a custom solution – e.g. manual work from SPO Admin Center GUI or PowerShell script ( e.g. with some dictionary). This is required for search to pick it up, crawl the property and create crawled property – so you could proceed with search schema mapping.

Configure Search Schema – map crawled property to managed property

For the nickname to be generally available in full-text-search – i.e.
user simply enter value in a search bar and gets results – here are the steps:

  • Ensure you have a SharePoint Administrator role activated
  • Navigate to SharePoint Admin Center – More features – Search – Manage Search Schema
  • Select Crawled Properties and ensure search picked up your custom property and crawled it – check your crawled property name under Category: People.
  • Under Managed Properties – create a new managed property
    • select “Searchable”
    • under Advanced searchable settings – select Full-text index: PeopleIdx
  • map this managed property to crawled property

========================================

References

Microsoft 365 Search Vertical KQL query field limits

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What is the Microsoft Search KQL query field limits for a verticals? Is there limited number of characters or lines?

You know what is Microsoft 365 Search Vertical and what is KQL query in vertical configuration, right?

Microsoft 365 Search Vertical KQL query field limits

Under Microsoft 365 admin center Search and intelligence you can configure search verticals. There are some out-of-the-box verticals – like All, Files, Sites, People and you can configure custom one.

As a part of vertical configuration – you can specify KQL query – if you want e.g. limit search with some sites or content types etc.

The question is – how many sites I can specify in this query field? E.g. can I specify 1000 sites? 10k sites?

And the answer is: It does not matter, because the limit is not in number of characters or lines.

In my dev environment I was able to save 50,000 lines (~3M characters). But attempt to save 100K lines (6M symbols) has failed (due to timeout, I believe:

Again, as I said the problem is not here.

The problem is time required for search to apply query. I.e. when you ask search to bring you something – after it gets results from index and before display results to you it applies KQL query configured for the vertical. And this time is the bottleneck.

Here is what I got measuring search response time depending on query size:

Searchresponse time,
seconds		KQL query
# of lines		KQL query size,
# of symbols
works150028,000
works5100059,000
works92000120,000
works253000180,000
works/fails303500208,000
fails353600214,000
fails3550,0003,000,000
n/an/a100,000
(can’t save KQL query		6,000,000
(can’t save KQL query)

Which means that after ~ 1000 lines (50,000 characters) KQL query size – query becomes too slow, and after ~3000 lines (180k chars) – can fail (due to timeout I’d say).

DepartmentId 

If your sites are organized in hierarchy under Hub site – you can use DepartmentId managed property to significantly decrease number of lines in query,
as you can cover all sites under the hub with

DepartmentId=<HubSiteId>


SharePoint Search: Site vs Tenant Scope, Placeholder Text, Answers and Verticals

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Service vs Site search

If you configure Verticals Query at the tenant level – i.e., Microsoft 365 Administration -> Settings -> Search and intelligence ->  Customizations -> Verticals
then search results will be trimmed everywhere  – SharePoint Landing Page, Office landing page (Office.com), Office App, Bing search (but not other sites).

Teams search will not be affected as from Teams you only search for teams content. Same for Onedrive and Yammer. Sites with site or hub search scope will not be affected too.

If you configure verticals at site level: Site Settings -> Microsoft Search -> Configure search settings -> Verticals
and want this be in effect – ensure site search scope is set to site or hub scope. But in this case you will loose answers functionality.

Global search settings – like acronyms, bookmarks and verticals – works only at tenant level search or at site leve if the site search scope is set to tenant.
If site search scope is site or hub – then site-level search verticals will apply (and no answers functionality will be possible).