By Richard Lane
Thanks to the big search engines, it is sometimes easier to find stuff on the Internet than on your own local network, which just seems silly. This is a problem that Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 was born to solve. In this introductory webcast on Customizing Search in Office SharePoint Server 2007, TechNet expert Matt Hester shows how to create customized, targeted search pages that search across databases as well as documents. The webcast is only a little over 20 minutes long and is well worth watching if you manage SharePoint Server 2007 or simply want to know more about how search works within Microsoft’s collaboration server.
It is easy to get confused about which SharePoint is which. This webcast is about Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, sometimes known as MOSS, rather than the free SharePoint Services add-on for Windows Server (WSS). Matt Hester explains the relationship between the two, and how they are more consistent with one another in the latest release.
Hester’s overview of what’s new in SharePoint Server 2007 reminded me of the scope of the product, from programming platform to search portal.
When I saw “Decoupling of content sources from scope” on the slide, I was hoping Hester would fully explain what that meant as it’s real SharePoint jargon. Luckily I was not disappointed, though I had to be patient.
Any organization has documents that are private to certain groups. Here’s where we learn how SharePoint handles that, and how it does it much better than the previous version.
TIP: SharePoint Server 2007 is less tightly coupled to Active Directory than before, making it easier to support anonymous or external users.
In the next and longest part of the webcast, Hester fires up his Virtual PC and walks through customizing search. It all starts with Search Settings in the Administration site, where we learn more about those mysterious content sources.
Not having looked at this before, I was impressed by the variety of different sources that SharePoint 2007 can search, including Exchange public folders and databases.
TIP: Hester explains how to force a newly-added scope to update immediately so you can check it out more quickly
Next we walk through adding scope rules. Hester does a great job of explaining what this is all about.
Right within the administration site, Hester shows how to create a new page for custom search. It’s only a few clicks, but the results look totally professional.
If you’ve used SharePoint, you’ll know how the user interface is based on tabs. Hester shows how to make a new tab, complete with a tooltip explaining what the tab does.
It works! Hester shows us an example search with its results, and then highlights perhaps the coolest feature of the entire presentation – a “best bet” search result which you can see starred on the right of the above screenshot. Creating best bet results is remarkably easy and delivers fantastic value for users.
What impressed me most in this webcast was SharePoint Server’s ease of use. Provided you are happy with the built-in templates, you can get good-looking and effective custom search pages using only the SharePoint administration site – no coding required.
TechNet Webcast Express: Customizing Search in Office SharePoint Server 2007.