developing your own query magic in sharepoint search€¦ · developing your own query magic in...

Name

Developing your own Query Magic in SharePoint Search

Virgil Carrollprincipal architect, high monkey

about me

• From the great State of Alaska• User Experience Aficionado• Been building websites since 1998• Been building SharePoint since 2001• Check out our new website• Blog: http://www.highmonkey.com/blog• Twitter: @vcmonkey

agenda

• Importance of findability• The challenges enterprises face• Doing some Query Magic (actual demos!!)

The importance of findability

• How we look for stuff• Complex structures

tend to fail• People want to find

things their way• People DON’T

UNDERSTAND HOW TO FIND STUFF

what is findability

how users think

• The too-easy information seeking model

User asks question

MAGIC HAPPENS

User received answer

why doesn’t this model work?

• Users may not know what they are looking for• User may not know the term to look for• User may just want to explore

search patterns

• Sometimes you’re just looking for one answer (known-item)

search patterns

• Sometimes you want to investigate (exploratory)

search patterns

• Sometimes you want to find everything

search patterns

• Sometimes you need to find it again (Re-finding)

search patterns

• Searching • Browsing • AskingStart

•Intranet Portal

Browse the intranet hierarchy

•Administration•Marketing•Sales•IT•Online Services

Browse the HR main page

•Benefits•HR Planning•Department

organization•Education &

training•Docs & info

systems

Search the Doc & info systems

•Time-off forms•Vacation request•PTO

Ask for help

•Call HR Department

•Ask ‘cube-mate’

Berry picking model1. Search2. View results3. Use results to

enhance search4. Repeat until end

result is found

search patterns

The challenges enterprises face• Garbage in garbage out• You can build an awesome search, but if your content sucks…

• Search requires a hook to work well• It takes a LOT of WORK

Doing some query magic

5 simple things you can do to make your search better

Check out my blog post: http://www.highmonkey.com/Blog/August-2015/1199.aspx

• Works in some, not all• Watch out for user save

patterns• Can create complex

queries to reduce effect

Order by descending date to return fresher results

• Misspellings, acronyms and synonyms

• Don’t go crazy• Must be updated every

time changed• Affects ENTIRE search

service

Use Thesaurus to relate similar terms

• Show cleaner results, no one needs to fine a list

• Remove certain file types

Remove lists, libraries and sites

• Survey your users• Look through your crawl

logs• Understand patterns

Decide what is more important, finding documents or content

• Segment to better target results

• Tie to search navigation / query rules

Use a result set to narrow down the results you want

• Prioritize fields to affect results

• Example• Content 0 – just

searchable• Content 1 – weighted

like title• Content 7 – weighted

like body text

• Beware of unintended consequences

Bonus #6: Weight your fields the way you want to

Lets demo

want to learn more• Go to: http://search.highmonkey.com/ and search ‘Next Gen Search’

• Blog posts of series coming out every two weeks

• To test query rules, try out ‘web’, ‘SharePoint’, ‘Kentico’

• Shoot me a question vie email or twitter

questions??Virgil Carroll, President

High Monkey Consulting

virgil@highmonkey.com

763-201-6040

Blog: http://www.highmonkey.com/blog

Twitter: @vcmonkey