SharePoint Search 101: Why do I need to tune relevancy?

(Advanced Relevancy Tuning, FAST Rank Profiles)

Concept of relevancy is important to search as it is a direct result of a sorting order in which results that are most significant as answers to the executed query appear first in the result set. For example when you search for a document and the query finds a match in the title of the document vs. the body, the document with the matching title would be better match as an answer to the query. In SharePoint Search 2010 there is a predefined ranking model which cannot be changed, but you can influence relevancy of documents by defining keywords, best bets, synonyms , search scopes, managed properties and sites promotion and demotion.

FAST Search For SharePoint 2010 search engine comes with a rank model that specifies how the relevancy is being calculated, but as the content within the enterprise varies in format, quality and freshness, there is no one-size-fits all model that can be applied throughout the enterprise and produce the desirable search experience. This is why FAST for SharePoint Search 2010 allows you to define your own relevancy models by introducing rank profiles.

Rank profiles are defining how the relevancy will be calculated on a particular query based on where within the document or item the match to the query occurred. For example: If a query term matches to the description metadata of the document this document most likely to be more relevant then the document with the match only in the body of it.

While SharePoint search comes with a preset rank profile which you cannot modify, Fast Search for SharePoint 2010 allows you to create your own rank profiles and apply them on a per query basis, you can also expose these rank profiles as a sorting criteria to end users.

You can create your own rank profiles through PowerShell cmdlets. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff453904.aspx

Technorati Tags: SharePoint Search 2010,FAST Search for Sharepoint,relevancy,rank profile,relevancy tuning

Work With the Experts – SharePoint 2010 Mentor Program

I wanted to reach wider audience hence I’m posting this on my blog.

Whether you already have SharePoint experience and are looking to take your skills to the next level or if you have been looking for an opportunity get into the SharePoint game, this is your opportunity to work with and learn from experts and MVPs while working closely with Microsoft Account teams, Fortune 500 Company Executives and decision makers.  Immediate openings!

Arcovis is a premier NYC boutique firm that specializes in Enterprise SharePoint Implementation and FAST Integration, providing technology-driven, collaborative solutions from mid-size business to the Enterprise. We are technology integrators, solution developers and Microsoft specialists, dedicated to building foundations which support and strengthen the talents and services of our Clients, helping them achieve stronger positioning and a greater return on investment through increased Team productivity and overall experience.

More information

Technorati Tags: SharePoint 2010 mentor program,arcovis,job

Professional Microsoft Search FAST Search, SharePoint Search, and Search Server Book

If any of you wandering why I have not been writing as much as I did before, here is the answer ;-)

I have been writing, but most of the effort had been focused on the BOOK, that’s right… this is the first book contribution that I’ve done so far (3 chapters). it would not be possible without awesome co-authors and especially Jeff Fried, Jeff is solely responsible for pulling me into this “project”. I’m thankful to Mark and Miles for seeing me as the right fit (did I mention that all 3 of them are awesome?). And since I’ve started thanking people close to me for their tireless support, I’d like to say special THANK YOU to my husband George, who put up with me during the “book” and another chapter and chapter revision time ;-) I was probably the most unbearable person at that time. George, I greatly appreciate all you have done for me and the support foundation that you have built, thank you.

And now without further delay, here is the introduction for my book. Now go and get it ;-), I'll be happy to sign it. there is a special discount to Enterprise Search User group members, join the group and come to our meetings. More information here

This is one of the first books dedicated to comprehensive coverage on Microsoft's new search technology, FAST Search.

• Features an expert group of authors, including the current VP of Products, Jeff Fried, who has been leading the strategic development of FAST search, as well as additional industry search consultants to provide real world guidance.

• FAST technology currently powers, Bing.com, as well as other notable sites: BestBuy.com, six of the top pharmaceutical companies, CareerBuilder, Reuters, and a host of other top tier knowledge based companies search sites.

• This book will provide coverage for implementing and using FAST search for both SharePoint and general search based services providing the broadest coverage for the reader.

About the topic/technology

Microsoft's largest purchase to date was when they purchased FAST Technologies for over a billion dollars. Now Microsoft is ready to leverage that investment by fully integrating this intelligent search technology into its existing products.

• FAST Search will be added as an option to the following Microsoft based technologies: FAST Search for SharePoint, FAST Search for Internet Business (a Windows and Linux based server), and the revision of SharePoint Server 2010 using Microsoft's in hose search technology.

• FAST Search has been a noted industry leader and is used not to just find a needle in a haystack, but to find out how big the needle is, what color, its chemical composition, where the needle was manufactured, and its current cost

• The big differentiator between FAST technology and other search technology is its robustness and ability to integrate business intelligence with Search.

The books primary audience would be IT and marketing staff in mid to large sized companies who are interested in understanding enterprise search. The core audience is based on those who are responsible for implementing and managing enterprise search. This is typically composed of both programmers who develop search based applications as well as system architects, managers, and planners who help design, deploy, and test search based systems. A large secondary market is based on Microsoft Certified Professionals who help consult and advise customers on search technology.

This book will help professional developers, programmers and administrators learn the key features and functions that are available with Microsoft's new FAST Search. The book will provide real world examples that show how the technology functions and can be used to solve key challenges faced in the Enterprise. Throughout the book key coverage will be provided on the following topics: • Enterprise Search and the Microsoft Search Product Line • SharePoint Focused Enterprise Search • FAST Search for Internet Business • The Future of Enterprise Search

Table of contents

INTRODUCTION. PART I: INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS ENTERPRISE SEARCH? CHAPTER 2: DEVELOPING A STRATEGY -- THE BUSINESS PROCESS OF SEARCH. CHAPTER 3: OVERVIEW OF MICROSOFT ENTERPRISE SEARCH PRODUCTS. PART II: IMPLEMENTING SEARCH. CHAPTER 4: SEARCH WITHIN SHAREPOINT 2010. CHAPTER 5: FAST SEARCH WITHIN SHAREPOINT 2010. CHAPTER 6: CUSTOMIZING SEARCH WITH SHAREPOINT 2010. PART III: IMPLEMENTING SEARCH WITH ESP. CHAPTER 7: INTRODUCTION TO FAST ESP. CHAPTER 8: CUSTOMIZATION AND DEPLOYMENT OF FAST ESP 5.X. CHAPTER 9: ADVANCED TOPICS. PART IV: ENTERPRISE SEARCH 2.0. CHAPTER 10: ENTERPRISE SEARCH IS SOCIAL SEARCH. CHAPTER 11: SEARCH AND BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE. CHAPTER 12: THE FUTURE OF SEARCH. APPENDIX: RESOURCES. INDEX.

About Authors

Mark Bennett is the co-founder and CTO of New Idea Engineering, Inc. His experience includes programming, senior technical support, engineering and database development positions.  Jeff Fried is the VP of Product Management with FAST Search specializing in strategic applications of search technology. Jeff is a frequent speaker on search technology and holds 15 patents. Jeff has also authored more than 50 technical papers and is the recipient of numerous industry awards. Miles Kehoe, is co-founder and President of New Idea Engineering, Inc. Natalya Voskresenskaya, had been working in the field of Information Technology for over 10 years. With experience in design, architecture, development and deployment of Web based applications, since early 2000 her main area of concentration has been the development of portal solutions. She was awarded the prestigious Microsoft MVP award in 2008.

Technorati Tags: Professional Microsoft Search FAST Search,SharePoint Search,Search Server,Book

Microsoft SharePoint MVP !!!!

Yay, October 1st, 2010 turned out to be an awesome day for me (even though it was raining cats and dogs). I got an email congratulating on getting MVP award for 2010 :-). This marks my third year as MVP and I’m happy to continue being a part of this great community of professionals and just friends and hopefully with more contributions to the SharePoint community we will make it even better.

Hera is a list of some of the community initiatives that I’m working on with many other great people, JOIN us!

SharePoint ShopTalk (web site is under development)

I'm sure you have heard before about the ShopTalk, it’s a weekly call with a of panelists that answer questions posed by the community. It is an hour long, weekly event happening every Thursday at 12:30 EST. ShopTalk is a free form Q&A session, we start off answering questions that have been emailed or otherwise sent to us. The format for this is basically a conference call with a couple of PPT slides shared via a Live Meeting session, but this is mainly people talking out loud. Members of the community will send their weekly questions and before each meeting I circulate the email with questions submitted or just list them in PPT that will be shared with all participants of the event via LiveMeeting.

Questions can be of any kind, deployment, administration, customization and end user/power user.

Let me explain the structure of each meeting in more details:

· 12:30 - 12:45 - introductions, couple of words from everyone on the panel board.

· 12:45 - 1:15 PM - answering the questions submitted via emails

· 1:15 PM - 1:30 PM - free form questions and answers, where participants can ask their questions via the phone or live meeting.

You may register today and join the SharePoint ShopTalk Group on Linkedin to submit questions prior to the event. Though you may also tweet your questions during the event to @spshoptalk and via live meeting, we encourage participants to send questions in advance so our panel of experts may answer questions at their highest capacity.

Enterprise Search User group (web site is under development)

The Enterprise Search User group is a SharePoint based community with a focus on Enterprise Search aimed to provide valuable and timely information to its members. It’s primary goal is to provide a forum that encourages disparate practices and business groups to come together and share thoughts, ideas, successes and failures, to cultivate a borderless body of knowledge.  Our meeting location is at MSFT office in New York.

Next Enterprise Search User Group Meeting: Enterprise Search for Large Pharmas - Value Proposition and Lessons Learned

This session will have a focus around the following questions:
How can Search add value to the drug discovery process in the form of innovative and cost effective access to knowledge and information?
How can Search connect people to experts and useful insights?
What are the Search trends and enabling technologies to meet growing and changing business demands?
What are some of the challenges around Search for Pharmas?
Speaker, Lesly Goh will provide the inside scoop detailing her very own experiences from her many Search implementations.
Sponsored by Avanade

Congratulations to all re-awarded MVPs and newly awarded as well!

Next post is about another great news that I’ve gotten yesterday as well, stay tuned!!!

Technorati Tags: Misrosoft SharePoint MVP,Natalya Voskresenskaya,Enterprise search user group,fast search for sharepoint,SharePoint shoptalk

SharePoint Search 101: What can I find on the search dashboard?

The SharePoint 2010 comes with a wide range of administration, operations and reporting features that aid in deployment, scaling and monitoring the performance of the search application.

The administration interface allows you to quickly see the topology of the search application with all components involved, such as query components, index partitions, administration, crawling and property databases. You can It provides you with a at a glance system status with information on the number of items in the index, crawl and propagation status, query and crawling rate and crawl history with success and failure of the crawl statuses.

Quick menu items provide access to Content Sources, Crawl Rules, File Types and Crawler Impact Rules where you can set the frequency with which each crawler component will be requesting items from specific site. The Queries and Results section of the quick lunch menu provides access points to specify Authoritative Pages, Federated Locations and search scopes as well as Metadata Properties configuration.

The Reports section allows to quickly access a wide variety of Administration and Web Analytics Reports. Administration Reports help to understand the query latency and crawl rate and show the overall performance of the application thus helping administrators to anticipate the necessity of adding new search components or modifications to existing topology based on the performance needs.

Technorati Tags: Sharepoint Search 2010,Search Administration

SharePoint Search 101: Why do I need to extract content?

A while ago, I’ve started writing search vignettes for the MSFT Enterprise Search Product team, but the project got stalled and I’ve decided (with MSFT permission) to start the “SharePoint Search 101” series of mini articles on my blog. All content is related either to SharePoint Search 2010 and/or Fast Search for SharePoint 2010 (FS4SP). These mini articles are intended to be small, easily digestible snippets of content that answer the What, How and Why of a given enterprise search feature of SharePoint Server 2010 and/or FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. The HOW portion is usually covered by the short demo or list of steps.

Why do I need to extract content?

(Entity Extraction, Managed Properties, Refiners)

Entity extraction is a way of pulling out meaningful information that might not be otherwise explicitly defined by end users as metadata. Managed Properties that are created through entity extraction and surfaced in the search interface as refiners are defining alternative structure or visual presentation of structure that can be used to narrow down the search results set.

When you present refiners based on managed properties created from entities extracted from content or metadata, users can easily filter out the result set based on the values of those extracted entities. Refiners can be shallow or deep, where shallow refiners are based on top 50 results brought back by query, and deep refiners is when all results are brought back with exact count of the number of results.

While managed properties are available in SharePoint Search 2010 OOTB, you can only map crawled properties that are exposed in lists and libraries metadata.

In the FAST Search for SharePoint there are built in entity extractors such as People, Companies and Locations. You can define your own list of terms to be extract from the content by building a dictionary or you can create a content processing stage that will extract entities based on a specific business rule or a need as well as extract entities through matching them to regular expressions. For example you can extract client names from document where this information is not available as metadata and expose it as managed property.

Note: Deep refiners are available only in FAST Search for SharePoint 2010

Enjoy :-)

Technorati Tags: Sharepoint Search 2010,managed properties,crawled properties,entity extraction

ESUG June Meeting - An In-depth Look into FAST Search for Internet Sites (FSIS)

JUNE MEETING REMINDER - Wednesday, June 9th, 5:30 PM REGISTER NOW SUBJECT An In-depth Look into FAST Search for Internet Sites (FSIS) SPEAKER Didier Oliver - is a Technical Sales Specialist in the Microsoft Enterprise Search Group.  His focus includes pre-sales briefings, evaluation support, requirement analysis, architectural design and working with implementation services teams.  Didier has been involved in the Search market for over 15 years.  Prior to Microsoft Didier has worked at other firms specializing in Search technologies such as Verity and Autonomy.  The session will focus on the new FAST Search for Internet Sites (FSIS). FSIS provides a new platform for building powerful and compelling online experiences.  We drill into the exciting new capabilities including: Interaction Management Services (IMS) Content Transformation Services (CTS) The Search Designer for Visual Studio The Business Manager Console MEETING AGENDA 5:30 PM - Networking (Food and Drinks) 6:00 PM - News and Highlights 6:10 PM - A word from our sponsor 6:30 PM - Speaker Presentation 7:25 PM - Wrap-Up and Give-Aways 7:30 PM - After Meeting Social ADDRESS 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Sixth Floor NY, NY 10104 To attend this meeting, REGISTER TODAY!

About the User Group The Enterprise Search User Group is a SharePoint based community with a focus on Enterprise Search aimed to provide valuable and timely information to its members. Its primary goal is to provide a forum that encourages disparate practices and business groups to come together and share thoughts, ideas, successes and failures, to cultivate a borderless body of knowledge.

Technorati Tags: Enterprise Search User Group,FAST search for internet sites,FSIS

How the FBI is using Enterprise Search to improve its law enforcement capabilities: A Case Study on the FBI Sentinel Program

April 14, 2010

Enterprise Search User Group Meeting in NYC.

Join us for this exciting event and great topic on a case study for FAST Search and how FAST provides:

• Automated indexing and comprehensive search capabilities that support both FBI agents and analysts
• Manages multiple backend content sources (Documentum and Oracle databases)
• Provides flexible pre-index content processing to normalize and enrich content using advanced linguistics

For those who have not heard of Sentinel:

1. Sentinel is the case management system employed by the Bureau to replace older case management systems.
2. Sentinel provides Web-enabled information management, workflow management, item & evidence management, records search & reporting across all data.

SPEAKERS:

Erik Franklin

Erik Franklin has been with FAST/Microsoft since 2003, and was the second employee hired to support FAST’s expansion into the US Federal Market. Erik has directly supported the closing of all major accounts in the government space, including accounts in the Civilian, Defense & Intelligence communities. This support includes the pre-sales briefings, evaluation support, requirements analysis, architectural design and working with implementation services teams. Erik has held a large number of roles at FAST, including pre-sales, solution implementation, training and search business consulting.

Jon Padgett

Jon Padgett has almost 20 years of sales experience in the US Federal Enterprise Search market. Jon been with FAST/Microsoft since 2008 and joined FAST with the acquisition of the Convera RetrievalWare search platform where he spent 11 years building a successful practice made up of Federal customers in the Civilian, Defense & Intelligence communities. Before that, Jon spent several years with Adobe Systems and then at a Verity Search reseller helping build their government sales practices. Last year Jon won the prestigious Microsoft Platinum Sales Club Top Attainment award.

Register now!

• MEETING AGENDA:

  5:30 PM - Networking (Food and Drinks)

  6:00 PM - News and Highlights

  6:10 pm - A word from our sponsor

  6:30 PM - Speaker Presentation

  7:25 PM - Wrap-Up and Give-Aways

  7:30 PM - After Meeting Social

  ADDRESS:

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, Sixth Floor New York, NY 10104

Special thanks to Metalogix for fully sponsoring this event.

I hope to see you there

Technorati Tags: FBI Enterprise Search,FAST ESP,Sentinell,Enterprise Search User Group

Custom workflow step to add user to a security group

I’m not a developer per say…

It might not be the best way to start a post that is introducing a custom workflow step created by me, step that adds users to a SharePoint security group. But I have to be very honest and confess that the last time I opened up a visual studio and compiled anything was in 2006 for SP 2003.

OK, so here are the requirements I had. This is for a site that is built to facilitate a clinical trials and to be managed by study coordinators. The need for a custom activity step was caused by the need to have multiple study sites that would require the same functionality. A medical study coordinators that are not part of admin group, only contributors for a list in the study site, coordinators need to fill out new user information when a person agrees to participate in a study. Coordinators would fill our the person desired user id and their existing email, submit it and have a workflow to notify the external user to register on the site with the user name that was provided by the study coordinator.

As the next step the study participant would register on the site and once coordinators confirm that the new user registered on the site (FBA) they would go to the New User information list, check “User Registered” field and save this information. Update of this user record triggers a workflow that automatically adds this new user to the correct security group that would allow new users submit different online questioners and forms in a secured fashion once they log into the study site

OK, so that’s it with the overview of the process requirements. Lets look at the workflow step developed here to facilitate the process of adding new users to the right security group. Keep in mind this is running with elevated privileges, but the source code is available for you to modify it as desired. It’s available on the codeplex at http://natalyavoskresenskay.codeplex.com/ for download.

Steps to deploy the custom action:

1. download the DLL and register the DLL in the GAC.

2. Add to your web.config the following line in AuthorizeTypes section

<authorizedType Assembly="AddUserToGroup, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=e82442daf6f5df8e" Namespace="CustomAction" TypeName="*" Authorized="True" />

3. Create AddUserToGroup.ACTIONS file with text bellow and save it to the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\1033\Workflow folder. this file is also available for download.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<WorkflowInfo Language="en-us">
<Actions Sequential="then" Parallel="and">
  <Action Name="Add User to the group" ClassName="CustomAction.AddUserToGroup" Assembly="AddUserToGroup, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=e82442daf6f5df8e" AppliesTo="all" Category="ARC Action">
   <RuleDesigner Sentence="Add %1 to the %2 at site %3">
    <FieldBind Field="UserName" Text="Please put the User Name" Id="1" DesignerType="TextArea"/>
    <FieldBind Field="GroupName" Text="Please put the Group Name" Id="2" DesignerType="TextArea"/>
    <FieldBind Field="SiteName" Text="Please put the Site Name" Id="3" DesignerType="TextArea"/>
   </RuleDesigner>
   <Parameters>
    <Parameter Name="__Context" Type="Microsoft.Sharepoint.WorkflowActions.WorkflowContext, Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowActions" Direction="In"/>
    <Parameter Name="UserName" Type="System.String, mscorlib" Direction="In" />
    <Parameter Name="GroupName" Type="System.String, mscorlib" Direction="In" />
<Parameter Name="SiteName" Type="System.String, mscorlib" Direction="In" />
   </Parameters>
  </Action>
</Actions>
</WorkflowInfo>

Now open up a site and create a workflow in SharePoint Designer, “Add User to a group” step should be available in the list of action.

Add this step and fill in the info, User name, Group Name and the site URL, all fields are mandatory for the workflow action to run.

See example:

Enjoy :-)

SSP Search error (Search application for SSP… is not provisioned)

On one of our farm we noticed that search had not been working, and the search administration page would give this message: “Crawl status The search application for 'SharedServices' on server [SERVERNAME] is not provisioned. Confirm that the Windows SharePoint Services Timer service and Windows SharePoint Services Administration service are running on the server. “

Even though search had been previously configured there, and required services were running, there was not obvious things that would usually jump out .

To troubleshoot it, I first tried stopping Office search from the UI. The status of “stopping” had been not switched to “Stopped” and kinda hang there for a while.

Trying to stop through stsadm –o osearch –action stop, yielded no result as well.

Running: “Net stop osearch” just gave me the “the service could not be controlled in its present state”, same message was observer when I hit stop the services console.

Kill utility was not available on that server and restarting the server was not an option as it was a production server.

Here is the list of steps that resolved the issue:

• End the process it’s self through tasks manager
• In central admin the “stopping” message for this Office search disappeared and instead I saw “stopped”
• Stopping WSS search was not an issue after these steps
• Then go and delete index from the index location.
• Start wss search services
• Start Office search services
• Edit properties of existing SSP –
  •  this is when I realized that db the SSP was referencing does not exist. And That was the problem all along
• I created new ssp, associated mysites with this new ssp.
• Changed association of other web apps with the new SSP, made the new ssp default
• Started full crawl, a bingo.

Hope it helps :-)

Technorati Tags: SharePoint Search,SSP

SharePoint Enterprise Search 2010 & FAST Search for SharePoint 2010

I’ll be speaking next month on March 3rd at the NYSPUG meeting, come and say HI.

NY SharePoint User Group Meeting, March 3 2010

Abstract:
With the acquisition of FAST Enterprise Search Platform, Microsoft has made enterprise search a centerpiece of SharePoint 2010. Get a first hand comprehensive overview of the major improvements in SharePoint Search 2010 compared to SharePoint Search 2007. Natalya will also provide an understanding of the major differences between SharePoint Search 2010 and FAST Search for SharePoint 2010. This session, full of demos, will cover the following:

• New & improved architecture
• Sources of content available for out-of-the-box indexing
• Crawled properties vs managed properties
• What is the entity extraction
• Social search & people search
• Relevancy tuning & content processing

Agenda: 

5:30 PM	Eat & Greet: Networking, Food & Drink
6:00 PM	The News: Breaking SharePoint & NYC SPUG News
6:10 PM	The SharePoint Minute: Quick 3-minute tutorial
6:20 PM	Presentation
7:20 PM	Wrap Up: Announcements/Door Prizes
7:30 PM	After Meeting Social: Continue discussions with Speakers, Sponsors & Peers

To attend this meeting, REGISTER NOW!

PS: Carlos, you already know this stuff :-)

 

Technorati Tags: FAST Search for SharePoint 2010,SharePoint Search 2010

Understanding the Integration of Search & Recommendations: February 10, 2010 @ NYC

This is our 3rd Enterprise Search User Group meeting in New York join us to see Tal Peleg to speak on the topic “Understanding the Integration of Search & Recommendations”

Abstract:

While Recommendations provides an entirely new economic model both for the media and entertainment industries (one that is just beginning to show its power). Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it in...

This technology is now harnessed for the productivity market as well.  Allowing for enhanced social computing around community of interest and allowing LOB owners to better communicate with their fellow workers.

Demo Included.

SPEAKER:

Tal Peleg, has been with FAST/Microsoft since 2007, focused on NY media accounts. This support includes the pre-sales briefings, evaluation support, requirements analysis, architectural design, and working with implementation services teams.  Prior to FAST, Tal has been in the telecom world, driving next generation services across the western hemisphere.

Register now!

• MEETING AGENDA:

  5:30 PM - Networking (Food and Drinks)

  6:00 PM - News and Highlights

  6:10 pm - A word from our sponsor

  6:30 PM - Speaker Presentation

  7:25 PM - Wrap-Up and Give-Aways

  7:30 PM - After Meeting Social

  ADDRESS:

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, Sixth Floor New York, NY 10104

  Technorati Tags: Enterprise search,User Group

FAST ESP SharePoint Connector (Part 1)

Late last year (2009) Microsoft had released the new SharePoint Connector for FAST ESP.

I’m planning on blogging about the installation process for the connector (in Part 2), security trimming support through the installation and configuration of FAST ESP Security access module (Part 3) as well as integration of the FAST ESP search results with SharePoint UI using CodePlex Web Parts (Part 4) and some of the tricks of making it all work together.

But for now, let’s take a look at some major functionality that this connector is providing:

• Secures SharePoint content through indexing of SharePoint ACLS.
• Supports User and group extraction, AD users and Groups as well as SharePoint Groups
• Mapping of SharePoint groups membership to AD through Security Access Module
• Besides NTLM it also supports Kerberos authentication.
• Indexes all possible meta data in the propertybag SharePoint Property.
• Indexes all information as XML in the scopes scenario.
• Include/exclude filters that allow you to configure the connector to include/exclude SharePoint webs/lists, you can even include / exclude by the type of the lists, or/and by the title, etc.
• Exposes inheritable properties for lists items, such as site metadata (Created by, description, etc)
• No need to install anything on WFEs or SharePoint servers, this version of the connector is using SharePoint Web Services instead of it's own as it was in the previous version.
• While there is no User Interface for the connector, it does come with installation wizard.
• Error recovery and checkpoint.
• Connector state can be stored in SQL or Oracle DBs, and these databases are very light weight.
• Export of processed SharePoint content into FastXML fields. This is very useful when after initial run of the connector you need to fine tune document processing pipeline and index profile. During testing you will not have to run the connector multiple times against live data, you can just use file traverser to reprocess all the content from XML files.

Enjoy :-)

Technorati Tags: FAST ESP,FAST Search,FAST SharePoint Connector,FAST SharePoint integration

SharePoint Bad Practices of 2009

Some of the observations that I had in 2009. These thing really surprised me as 2008 and 2009 were all about Best Practices and really left not too much room for these mistakes to be made. But these are the once that bugged me the most.

Branding:

1. 1. Creating site definition just to apply custom branding.

I don’t think I have to go into too much explanation here :-)

Infopath:

1. 1. Not creating site columns up front when you are promoting fields to content type from InfoPath.

Once you promote fields without mapping them during publishing the form to previously created columns, will make those columns virtually un-modifiable  in SharePoint site columns later.  it means that if you have to republish the form with modifications to these promoted fields, you will end up with duplicate columns and the previously published columns will be orphaned and you would not be able to delete them.

Another one is a scenarios when you would want to publish one more infopath form and promote fields with the same names as previously published form, duplicates again.

1. 2. Managing the state of infopath form from the form its self as well as from workflows.

EX: you have a form where users are filling out their expenses, the form is also being used to accommodate a process when end user submits the form for designated users to “Approve” the form, approvers get “approve/reject” view, and submit the approval status along side with the disposition. Once it is done a field that is promoted to the library (EX: FormStatus) indicates the status of “approved” or “rejected”. This sound simple and clean, but it’s not when you have to also have for example a notification workflow running under the library. Say that the workflow is using form state fields (EX: FormStatus, endUserNotified, etc..) that are managed within the InfoPath to notify users, but what happens when the form is resubmitted for approval, or you have to maintain as most of the time multiple approval or rejection cases and scenarios within the workflow, this is when it becomes VERY MESSY.

The moral is: before you start creating a solution make sure that all processes are mapped out and clear, if a form will not have workflows (read processes) running under it, or if those workflows will not update form state information (fields maintaining the state of the form), then it’s OK to manage it from the form only, but in cases when workflows will rely on updating these fields and the form will rely and update this information as well, you can get your self in trouble. Make sure that state info is maintained only in one place, but is accessible from the form as well as from the process, if it will have to be maintained from the process, it should be maintained only from the workflow.

Do not create content types from infopath publishing process, if you did not plan for those content types. Plan for infopath content types as if you were planning for SharePoint originated CTs, remember the Information Architecture 123 in SharePoint Planning Best Practices. It is very easy to create a content type from InfoPath, but it is very difficult to manage it without deleting and recreating it.

Hope it helps

Technorati Tags: Infopath,Content Types,Best Practices,Worst Practices

How Microsoft and FAST are defining Next Generation Advertising and Internet Business

This topic will be covered in our Enterprise Search User Group meeting on January 13, 2010 at 5:30 PM.

First of all HAPPY NEW YEAR! and I hope to see you at the meeting.

How Microsoft and FAST are defining Next Generation Advertising and Internet Business

The FAST AdMomentum Platform (AdMo) is a key piece of Microsoft’s Internet Business strategy in helping companies increase top line revenues and maintain full control over their entire advertising business. AdMo is unique in the market as it is the only solution for the management and serving of all ad types (display, performance, and tenancy), ad formats (image, text, video, multimedia, etc), and pricing models (CPC, CPM, and CPA). AdMo is a complete, white labeled, end-to-end solution that also allows for total flexibility and configuration to meet functional and integration requirements of an organization.

In this session, you'll get a first-hand look at how this game-changing advertising technology offers improved opportunities to provide more relevant ads and targeted message improving the user experience and increasing revenue. The presentation will focus on AdMo as a stand-alone advertising platform and also part of a Internet Business strategy utilizing FAST ESP integrated to drive a larger digital strategy. 

Speakers:

James Cooper, Solution Sales Professional in Advertising for North America in the Microsoft Enterprise Search Group

Tim McKinnon, TSP Lead & Strategic Accounts, Americas in the Microsoft Enterprise Search Group

Register now!

• Address:
  1290 Avenue of the Americas, Sixth Floor
  New York, NY 10104

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See you there :-)