Monday, April 29, 2013

Taxonomy Filter Web Part for SharePoint

I just published my codeplex project for a taxonomy filter web part. The web part works on XsltListView’s and provide a hierarchical term picker to filter against taxonomy columns.

It’s currently a farm solution for SharePoint 2010, but a version for 2013 (with 365 support) is in the plans. The project can be found at: https://sptax.codeplex.com/

Hope it’s useful!

Monday, April 22, 2013

Limiting search results in SharePoint 2013 (aka scopes in 2010)

A typical scenario in SharePoint is to limit the results on a search page to specific content. In SharePoint 2010 this was achieved by creating Search Scopes, and then adding include and exclude rules to the scope. Then you could configure the Core Results Web Part to display results from that scope only.

SharePoint 2013 however introduces the concept of Result Sources instead of scopes. As a sample I will limit results to show items from one particular site.

You can create Result Sources on three different levels: Search Service Application, Site collection and Site. This means you can define Result Sources in a very granular way, depending on where you want to use them. But bear in mind that having configurations spread all across your sites increases complexity of maintenance. In this sample I will create my Result Source at the SSA level.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Rank models in 2013–Main differences from 2010

Disclaimer: I’m by no means a math expert and my statements below might not be 100% accurate, but I try my best. Also, be careful when tuning the rank profile as changing numbers can have a big effect on your ranking.

With the new FAST search core, ranking has changed quite a lot from 2010. Newly published content on MSDN explains a bit more how rank is calculated and how you can change it.
As the O14 rank model is available in SharePoint 2013 (O15), I will try to outline some of the major differences you can expect to see regarding how results are ranked/sorted by default.
You can pull out the rank model xml yourself from both models using PowerShell.

$ssa = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication
$owner = Get-SPenterpriseSearchOwner -Level ssa

$o15 = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchRankingModel -SearchApplication $ssa -Owner $owner -Identity 8f6fd0bc-06f9-43cf-bbab-08c377e083f4
$o15.RankingModelXML > o15.xml

$o14 = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchRankingModel -SearchApplication $ssa -Owner $owner -Identity 9399df62-f089-4033-bdc5-a7ea22936e8e
$o14.RankingModelXML > o14.xml

Then it’s all a matter of comparing the models.

SharePoint Saturday Oslo–June 1st 2013

The year of 2013 is well upon us, and the powers that be has decided to organize Oslo and Norway’s first SharePoint Saturday on June 1st.

We’re all super-psyched and hope to put on a varied and packed day with interesting sessions for everyone attending.

And it’s all FREE! :)

Interested in attending or speaking? Head over to https://spsevents.org/worldwide/Oslo/

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

How to enable page previews in SharePoint 2013 for content not on the Search Center host domain

The solution

  • Edit Item_WebPage_HoverPanel.html
  • Add <WebPartPages:AllowFraming runat="server" /> to your master page
Beware: This solution opens up for click-jacking, but should not be a real threat on a intranet scenario.

The journey

Ok, you start off your new SharePoint 2013 and try to be smart regarding web applications, site collections and domain names.
The full 2013 solution has one intranet and collaboration part and one part for a QMS system. Early on you agree to use the following domain structure which should make sense to the end-user.
Everyone is happy and after a month or so the issue of search comes up. To align with the existing structure you go with: