Searching Business Data with MOSS 2007 Enterprise Search

Presenter: Corey RothEnterprise ConsultantStonebridge

Blog: www.dotnetmafia.com

Corey Roth

Consultant for Stonebridge Worked in Consumer Electronics, Travel, Advertising,

and Energy industries Currently doing MOSS development specializing in

Enterprise Search OSU Graduate Microsoft Award for Customer Excellence (ACE)

Winner E-mail: corey.roth@gmail.com Blog: www.dotnetmafia.com (mirrored on

sharepointblogs.com)

Why Enterprise Search? Allows indexing and searching of business data

from multiple systems with little or no code. Through Business Data Catalog (BDC) can index

non-SharePoint applications BDC can index data in SQL Server, Web Services,

and other database providers Can also be used to index Active Directory (People

Search) Designed to search text – Other data types can work

but there are limitations

Business Data Catalog

Abstraction Layer between MOSS and Business Applications Provides support for displaying and

searching data from databases and web services

Designed for Readonly access Inserts/Updates/Deletes are possible but

there are limitations Not a replacement for a DAL

Security Security is required for the following

accounts Domain Accounts are recommended

Content Access – Defined in Search Settings; Needs read access to database table; Needs BDC Execute permission

Shared Service Provider Account – Used for profile pages; Needs BDC Execute/Select in Clients permission

Administrators – Specify an account with full control or you will run into issues

End Users – Need BDC Execute/Select in Clients permission

Steps1. Create MetaData Model for Business

Application2. Import MetaData3. Create Content Source4. Crawl Business Data5. Create Managed Properties and map them to

Crawled Properties6. Crawl Business Data (Again)7. Create Search Scope

Step 1 - BDC Metadata Model

XML file which maps entities from databases or web services to the BDC

Defines default actions when a search result is clicked

Requires a unique id in the data source* Three types of methods

Finder - Returns all records from a table or view SpecificFinder - Returns details for a specific

record IDEnumerator - Used by Enterprise Search to

determine rows to index

BDC Metadata Model Version Number – Increment every time you import

during development LobSystemInstance element

AuthenticationMode – RevertToSelf AccessControlList element – Specifies Security (can

also do through SSP) Action element – Sets a default action (sets a URL to

go for that item)

BDC Tools

Tools can be useful for generating XML MetaData schema

Office SharePoint Server SDK BDC Meta Man MOSS BDC Design Studio Many Others Available Now

Start Small

Crawls over entire tables can take a long time

Avoid crawling full tables when testing Modify Schema file to crawl partial tables

i.e.: SELECT TOP 50…

Demo

Step 3 - Content Sources

Content Sources can map to one or more BDC Application Definition

Used to start and stop content crawls Typically map one application definition to

one content source

Step 4 - Crawling

Uses IDEnumerator method to get list of rows to import.

Calls SpecificFinder method for each Id returned by IDEnumerator

Stores columns from table or web service as crawled properties

Demo

Step 5 - Managed Properties

Out of the box, a search will do a full-text search on all text properties

Can be used to create advanced search pages

After first crawl, columns are available as crawled properties

Map crawled properties to managed properties for more specific searches

Non-text types are not indexed by default

Demo

Step 7 - Scopes

Scopes are used to specify different types of content to search (i.e.: Products, People, Sales, etc.)

Scopes can be defined by Content Source or Managed Property

Typically map to a Content Source to make it easier to test application definitions

Can be displayed in drop down lists in conjunction with the SearchBox web part

Search Center Out of the box site and web parts for

searching and displaying results Can be created using the Site Settings menu

on the root web site by enabled certain features

Supports keyword search only (no wildcard) For wildcard search consider a Search

Center Replacement such as Ontolica or write your own search page

Keyword Syntax Used to search by Managed Properties Can specify Scopes (Scope:”MyScope”) Can be passed via URL to CoreResultsWebPart (k

Query String parameter) AND implied between each keyword (i.e.:

Color:”Red” Size:”M” is the same Color=“Red” AND Size=“M”)

OR implied when multiple keywords of the same managed property used (i.e.: Color:”Red” Color:”Blue” translates to Color=“Red” OR Color=“Blue”)

Search CenterFeatures Required

Site Collection Features Office SharePoint Server Enterprise Site Collection

features – BDC Web Parts Office SharePoint Server Search Web Parts – Enterprise

Search Web Parts Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure – Not

necessarily required unless you want to activate the feature below

Site Features Office SharePoint Server Publishing – Adds Create Site

menu item and publishing features (not required but convenient)

Search CenterWeb Parts

SearchBox CoreResultsWebPart BestBets Paging AdvancedSearch

Search CenterCustomization

CoreResultsWebPart displays search results Columns property – XML specifying

Managed Properties XSL – Transform the HTML output of the

search results Column names are specified in lower case in

XSL (i.e.: Color will be color)

Deployment and Migration

MOSS has no built in way to move Enterprise Search settings!

SharePoint Shared Services Provider Creation (SSSPPC) can help (see blog for more info)

ReferencesDot Net Mafia Bloghttp://www.dotnetmafia.com

Office SharePoint Server SDKhttp://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms550992.aspx

Faceted Search Web Partshttp://www.codeplex.com/FacetedSearch

SharePoint Shared Services Provider Creationhttp://www.codeplex.com/SSSPPC

BDC Meta Manhttp://www.bdcmetaman.com

Ontolicahttp://www.ontolica.com

Questions?

Thanks

Corey Rothcoreyroth@gmail.com www.dotnetmafia.com