SharePoint Jumpstart #2 Making Basic SharePoint Search Work

Copyright © 2009 Earley & Associates Inc. All Rights Reserved.

SharePoint Search & IA Jumpstart Series

June 11, 2009Call 2: Making Basic SharePoint Search Work

Hosted by Earley & Associates in partnership with Consejo, Inc.


About the JumpStart call series

• Began educational call series in 2005

• Past topics have included Taxonomy and Metadata, Content Management, Search, Semantic Technologies

• Have had several thousand attendees over the years. Today’s call has over 700 registrants

• Calls will be recorded and available for download

• Be sure to fill in evaluation to let us know what additional topics you would like to learn about

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Community of Practice Calls

Taxonomy Group url: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxoCoPSearch Group url: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SearchCoP

Upcoming calls:

• July 15, 2009 – Metadata Maturity Model Survey Findings• August 5, 2009 – Conducting a Search Audit• September 2, 2009 – DITA• October 7, 2009 – Taxonomy Usability Testing• November 4, 2009 – Developing an Ontology• December 2, 2009 – Applications for Topic Maps

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http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxoCoP

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SearchCoP


Housekeeping

• Calls last from 60 – 90 minutes

• Email questions during the call to [email protected]. Questions will be taken at the end of the session

• You can also skype Rebecca.M.Allen

• Questions will be queued through the operator. Press *1 to ask a question.

• If you are on twitter, you can follow the discussion and make comments using the hash tag #spjs

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mailto:[email protected]


Call 2: Making Basic SharePoint Search Work

• Shawn Shell, Consejo Inc.– Improving Search through Tagging

• Sadie Van Buren, Knowledge Management Associates– Usability Improvements Inside and Out

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SharePoint Search & IA Series: Calls 3 – 4

Call 3: Navigation, Metadata, & Faceted Search: Approaches & Tools

Thursday, June 18th

– Lars Farstrup, Farstrup Software

– Paul Wlodarczyk, Earley & Associates

Call 4: SharePoint IA vs. The Real WorldThursday, June 25th

– Toby Conrad & Jeremy Bentley, Smartlogic

– Jeff Carr & Michael Shulha, Earley & Associates

As session recordings become available, you will receive

notification at the email address used at the time of

registration.

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About Me

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• Richard Beatch– Senior Consultant at Earley & Associates, Inc.

– Ph.D. in Ontology

– Specialized in Taxonomy, Search, Metadata, and

content architecture

– Extensive industry experience leading the

implementation and design of taxonomies and

search solutions for a range of companies

including Apple, McAfee, Allstate, Dell, and AT&T

– Contact: [email protected]

– Blog: http://sethearley.wordpress.com

http://sethearley.wordpress.com/


Search Basics

• We have to change our definition of search.• Search algorithms are getting better, but they cannot infer

human context & intent.• Taxonomy, metadata and information architecture are key

aspects of search.• Search is increasingly looking like navigation.• Search is messy.

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A few things we have come to understand about search over the years:

Improving Search through Tagging

Shawn Shell, Consejo

Shawn Shell, Principal Consultant

• Founder and Principal Consultant for Consejo, Inc.

• 20 years technology experience with a concentration on content technologies for the last 10 years

• Internationally recognized expert on SharePoint products and technologies

• Multi-year speaker at national and international conferences on Microsoft technologies

• Primary analyst and author of the CMS Watch SharePoint Report 2009 (http://www.cmswatch.com/SharePoint/report)

• Lead over three dozen SharePoint implementations since 2001

• Co-wrote first connector between MCMS and SharePoint for Microsoft

• Co-author Microsoft Content Management Server 2002: A Complete Guide (Addison-Wesley)

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http://www.cmswatch.com/SharePoint/report

Agenda

• Basic Problem Set• Tagging Content• OOTB Configuration Improvements• Practical Success Plan• Resources

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Basic Problem Set

Metadata Entry

• Users don’t like to enter it

• Accuracy is generally suspect

• Training is usually non-existent

• “Successful” patterns make everything “special”

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Limitations in SharePoint

• No cascading Columns (no hierarchy)

• Columns do not propagate across Site Collections

• Business data inaccessible in Content Types

• No integrity in lookup values

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Metadata Inconsistencies

• Each content source has potentially different metadata

• Vocabulary differences across sources

• Challenge to leverage advanced search

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Tagging Content

Columns = Metadata

There are many types of columns: e.g.

DateNumberFree form Text

Column values can also be chosen from a list of controlled vocabulary terms

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Content Types

Reusable collection of settings to describes a specific kind of content

• Metadata fields (columns)

Content Types can contain custom properties like:

• Retention Policy• Workflows• Business processes

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Standard Properties

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Document Information Panel

• Standard in Office 2007

• Honors Content Types and Columns

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Blog Entry Interface

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Blog Post in Word

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Metadata for blog post also shown in Word

OOTB Configuration

Creating Managed Property

• Add column to the index

• Exposes the column in advanced search

• Enables showing the column in search results views

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Advanced Search

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Full text keywords

Extended metadata properties

Metadata Mapping

• Allows metadata to correlate between sources

• Provides a way to surface in Advanced Search interface

• Ensures consistency

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Metadata Mapping

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URL Removal

• Removes URL from index

• Prevents result from appearing in search results

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Practical Success Plan

Improve metadata with…

• Workflow to automate content tagging

• Document Information Panel

• User profiles and metadata profiles

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Improve Search with…

• Construct “canned” searches

• Leverage Best Bets

• Use RSS feeds to surface results “without search”

• Experts to review results periodically

• Create scopes for content sources

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Other Resources

Notable Blogs

• Consejohttp://blog.consejoinc.com

• Earley & Associateshttp://sethearley.wordpress.com

• CMS Watchhttp://www.cmswatch.com/SharePoint/trends

• SharePoint Team Bloghttp://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/

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http://blog.consejoinc.com/

http://sethearley.wordpress.com/

http://www.cmswatch.com/SharePoint/trends

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/

Other Resources & Downloads

• CodePlexhttp://www.codeplex.com

• SharePoint Search Portalhttp://sharepointsearch.com/default.aspx

• SharePoint End User Content Team (MSFT) http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/GetThePoint/default.aspx

• WSS Demo (Metadata and Content Types)http://www.wssdemo.com/Pages/metadata.aspx

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http://www.codeplex.com/

Other Resources & Downloads

• Taxonomy Tagging Starter Kit http://cks.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=2830

• Popular Page Web Parthttp://popularpages.codeplex.com/

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Questions?

Shawn ShellPrincipalConsejo, Inc

E: [email protected] P: 773-271-1474W: www.consejoinc.com

Making Basic SharePoint Search Work – Usability Improvements Inside and Out

SharePoint Search & IA Jumpstart Series6/11/09

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• SharePoint Consultant with Knowledge Management Associates

• Over 20 SharePoint implementations, all of which involved SP Search

About Me

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Agenda

• Improving usability of the search interface and results

• Behind-the-scenes usability improvements• Advanced Search• Interesting things we’ve seen companies do

with the SharePoint search interface• Frustrations and Gotchas• Conclusion / Resources

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Improving usability of the search interface and results

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Adding a title to document properties affects search results

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Filename only:

Filename and Title:

Scopes can be used to serve content in different ways

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Global search box Tabs in Search Center

Global search results vs. Contextual search results

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Home

Departments Projects Committees Training Reports

Sales & Marketing

Global

Contextual

Global search results are different than Contextual search results

Global Contextual

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XML/XSL customizations can change the look and feel of Search Results

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Behind-the-scenes usability improvements

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Site structure impacts relevancy

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Home

Departments Projects Committees Training Reports

Sales & Marketing

1st level

2nd level

Leverage Best Bets to bring most relevant content to the top of results.

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Measure results and make adjustments periodically

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Advanced Search

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Users don’t tend to use Advanced Search.

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Advanced Search works differently from the Global Search on all pages

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You can use custom managed properties in Advanced Search.

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Interesting things we’ve seen companies do with the SharePoint search interface

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No browse, search only

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Custom image search

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Phone reverse lookup

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Faceting and Federating

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Frustrations and Gotchas

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People search can be ordered by social distance and relevance, but not alpha

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Results paging is an estimate, not an absolute number.

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Users need to be aware of the time interval between incremental indexes

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Once you start serving up indexed content, you’ll find things that shouldn’t be out there

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Search Usage analytics reflect pages, not individual items.

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Recommendations

• Review search usage reports monthly to determine which items need Best Bets, & create Keywords and Best Bets accordingly

• If indexing file shares, spot-check for sensitive information and forbidden file types

• Make users aware of indexing time• Expose Advanced Search to make it more

usable

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Resources

• Tabular XML customization of search results – fixed query (seen on slide 9) – http://www.u2u.info/Blogs/Patrick/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=1669

• Tabular XML customization of search results – dynamic query (not shown) - http://blogs.pointbridge.com/Blogs/morse_matt/Pages/Post.aspx?_ID=51

• SharePoint custom image search results (seen on Slide 20)- http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/matthew/archive/2008/08/28/sharepoint-image-search-part-1.aspx

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Photo Credits

Slide # Title & Author

1 “Fishing by Pukot” by Lenareh

2 Untitled by Winslow Martin

4 “curiosando…” by Lilith Ecate

9 “Operating a hand drill at North American Aviation, Inc.” by the Library of Congress

13 “Scorpion Variation” by Stanka Stoyanova

17 “Parrot on Skateboard” by Todd Downey / chinatoddmd on Flickr

22 “Venus Flytrap, Walsall 14/06/2008” by Gary S. Crutchley

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Thank You!Sadie Van Buren

svanburen[at]kmainc.comBlog

http://amatterofdegree.typepad.com/a_matter_of_degree/Del.icio.us

http://del.icio.us/sadalitTwitter

http://twitter.com/SadalitLinkedIn

http://www.linkedin.com/profile?goback=%2Econ&viewProfile=&key=7793076&jsstate=.conbro_0_*51_false_*2_25027

SlideSharehttp://www.slideshare.net/sadalit

Also Flickr, Blip, Facebook, MySpace…68


Earley & Associates SharePoint Services (in Partnership with Consejo)

• SharePoint Assessment • SharePoint Strategy• SharePoint Design (Information Architecture,

Workflow, UI)• SharePoint Implementation• SharePoint Integration with Enterprise Search

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We help organizations succeed from an enterprise-wide perspective, ensuring findability of content through effective document tagging, metadata management, and search

http://www.earley.com/SharePointServices.asp


SharePoint Search & IA Series: Calls 3 – 4

Call 3: Navigation, Metadata, & Faceted Search: Approaches & Tools

Thursday, June 18th

– Lars Farstrup, Farstrup Software

– Paul Wlodarczyk, Earley & Associates

Call 4: SharePoint IA vs. The Real WorldThursday, June 25th

– Toby Conrad & Jeremy Bentley, Smartlogic

– Jeff Carr & Michael Shulha, Earley & Associates

As session recordings become available, you will receive

notification at the email address used at the time of

registration.

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Please fill out the survey that should be in your inbox.

Let us know what topics you are interested in and how we can improve the series.

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Seth [email protected]

Technology

SharePoint Jumpstart #2 Making Basic SharePoint Search Work