developing your own query magic in sharepoint search€¦ · developing your own query magic in...
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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
763-201-6040
Blog: http://www.highmonkey.com/blog
Twitter: @vcmonkey