Advanced Search
The component that helps users find documents, contacts, and information in the Microsoft 365 environment within seconds.
What is Advanced Search
Advanced Search is a search bar that enhances the capabilities of SharePoint Online, helping users find answers and content within the integrated Microsoft environment, as well as on the intranet. Advanced Search assists intranet users in locating:
Documents, news, and useful content pages
Company personnel
Work applications
Answers to frequently asked questions
In one centralized location, users can access everything they need to enhance their work.
Explore the advantages of Intranet.ai Advanced Search by clicking here to learn more.
Add the Advanced Search web part to a SharePoint page
If your page is not already in edit mode, click Edit at the top right of the page.
Click on it and, in the web part search box, enter Search to quickly find and select the Advanced Search web part.
Configuration
People settings
Advanced search allows you to look up company contacts, making it easy to quickly find all your colleagues' information. Therefore, it's essential to include People Directory details in this section.
If you're not in edit mode already, click Edit at the top right of the page.
Enter the site URL where the People directory list has been installed.
For example: https://intranetai.sharepoint.com/sites/my-hub/
Choose the People directory list.
Select the People Directory data source, which can be either SharePoint or Graph. Since a SharePoint list can contain a maximum of 5,000 items, companies with more than 5,000 employees will be required to use Graph as the data source. For companies with fewer than 5,000 employees, the choice will be the SharePoint list of the people directory, which is synchronized daily with Azure AD contacts.
Insert the additional graph query: by default, all active users who have their full name and surname are taken, but with that field it is possible to insert an additional graph query to filter users based on their Azure Active Directory attributes.
For example, you can set to display only users who have the officeLocation field set to a certain value in Azure AD by filling it in the Insert the additional graph query field.
Then, you need to select the field from the list where the active/is-visible value is stored, where you can choose between Active and No value.
Finally, you can choose whether to show the user's Teams status in the search bar.
To activate the Teams status in the intranet web parts, a few actions in the SharePoint admin center are needed. The SharePoint admin center can be accessed with a SharePoint Admin account. So, you need to take the following steps with a SharePoint Admin account:
Go to https://yourtenant-admin.sharepoint.com/ to access the SharePoint admin center.
Expand the Advanced section in the left-hand menu and click on API access.
In the Pending requests section, you should have the following row: Microsoft Graph - Presence.Read.All.
Select the row and click on Approve at the top left of the page.
Contact card settings
In this section, you need to choose which information you want to display when searching for a contact in the search bar and specify in which fields of Azure AD this information is stored.
Contacts list field: select the fields you want to see when a contact is searched, for example: Title (corresponding to Name and Surname of the contact), Department, Job Title.
Select the field where the name is saved: specify in which field of Azure AD this information is stored; usually it is Given Name.
Select the field where the surname is saved: specify in which field of Azure AD this information is stored; usually it is Surname.
Select the field where the business phone is saved: specify in which field of Azure AD this information is stored; usually it is Business Phones.
Select the field where the mobile phone is saved: specify in which field of Azure AD this information is stored; usually it is Mobile Phone.
Select the field where the image is saved: specify in which field of Azure AD this information is stored; usually it is Title.
Select the field where the user principal name is saved: specify in which field of Azure AD this information is stored; usually it is User Principal Name.
Enable phone icon: this field is used to enable or disable the phone button, which allows you to call the contact directly from the Intranet if you have a Voip system when you access the person’s card. If you don't have a Voip system, remove the flag from Enable phone icon.
In the first dropdown, select the number to be used to identify the user making the call (the caller). Example: Mobile Phone.
In the second field, enter the URL with the placeholders {caller} and {receiver} as the description of the field says. Example: https://urldachiamare?caller={caller}&receiver={receiver}.
Select the filed where the mail is saved: specify in which fields of Azure AD this information is stored; usually it is Mail.
Enable mail icon / enable teams icon: here you can enable or disable the quick action buttons for mail and Teams, as you can see an example below:
The final field, Insert a link to the app you want to open when clicking on a person card, is seamlessly integrated with the People Directory or My Profile application. You can insert a link to the page where the People Directory or My Profile is located. This way, when you click on the name of the person you've searched for, their personal card in the People Directory or My Profile opens, displaying all the relevant information.
Language settings
This area only concerns multi-language intranets.
As will be explained in the section named QNA settings, Advanced Search allows you to search for information within SharePoint lists of FAQs or within a knowledge base created with Language Studio. If you choose the latter option, here you can select the language in which results will be returned. The language may be based on the page language or the site language.
Document search settings
The Advanced Search feature allows you to search through documents stored in SharePoint Online. The search indexes both the title and the text of the documents. Therefore, if you search for a word contained within a document, the search bar will include that document in the results. In this section of the configuration panel, you can select the SharePoint sites for document searches and customize the display of the search results.
If you're not in edit mode already, click Edit at the top right of the page.
Select sites: here you can specify the source for your documents. Your documents can come from the site you are on while using the web part, or one or more individual sites. So, in this field, you need to select the sites where you have saved the documents you want to appear in the search.
Select the search order for documents: you can choose to leave it as More relevance or Last edit for the documents’ order.
Choose whether to display the file name or the file title with the extension: you can choose whether to show the extension of the file or not.
If you want to show metadata related to documents, you can open the Configure the documents section properties panel and insert the taxonomy. Filling this field is optional.
In the next field, you can insert the internal name of the language managed property if it has been manually edited. Filling this field is optional. If you leave it blank, the default internal name is taken: owstaxIdIAILanguage.
In the next section, you can chose if you want to download or open a document.
In the next section, you can choose if you want to hide or show the download icon.
In the last section, you can choose if you want to open the document in a new tab or not.
News search settings
The Advanced Search feature allows you to search through news published in SharePoint Online. In this section of the configuration panel, you can select the SharePoint sites for news searches and customize the display of the search results.
If you're not in edit mode already, click Edit at the top right of the page.
Select sites: here you can specify the source for your news. Your news can come from the site you are on while using the web part, or one or more individual sites. So, in this field, you need to select the sites where you have published the news you want to appear in the search.
On the next section, you can choose if you want to filter news by audience or not. By enabling audience targeting, specific content will be prioritized to specific audiences.
On the next section, you can choose if you want to show news preview image or icon.
Select the search order for news: you can choose to leave it as More relevance or Last edit for the news’ order.
If you want to show metadata related to news, you can open the Configure the news section properties panel and insert the taxonomy. Filling this field is optional.
Pages search settings
The Advanced Search feature allows you to search through pages published in SharePoint Online. In this section of the configuration panel, you can select the SharePoint sites for pages searches and customize the display of the search results.
Select sites: here you can specify the source for your pages. Your pages can come from the site you are on while using the web part, or one or more individual sites. So, in this field, you need to select the sites where you have published the pages you want to appear in the search
On the next section, you can choose if you want to show page preview image or icon.
Select the search order for pages: you can choose to leave it as More relevance or Last edit for the pages’ order.
If you want to show metadata related to pages, you can open the Configure the pages section properties panel and insert the taxonomy. Filling this field is optional.
Apps search settings
If you're looking for how to configure Company Apps, click here.
Advanced Search enables users to find company apps, which is why it's essential to configure in the Search the SharePoint list used to store these business applications.
Enter the URL of the site where the Applications list is saved.
From the dropdown menu below, select the name of the applications list. Typically, this list is named Apps list.
Then set the fields in the order as follows:
Select the file where the app icon is saved: IconName.
Select the file where the app title is saved: Title.
Select the file where the app url is saved: Link.
QNA settings
If you're looking for how to configure the Company FAQs, click here.
Advanced Search enables you to search through one or more lists of FAQs saved on SharePoint or within a knowledge base created using Language Studio. In this section, you can configure the settings for the FAQ search.
First, you need to choose whether you want to use:
The FAQs saved in the knowledge base created with Language Studio (select QnA from the drop-down menu);
The FAQs saved in SharePoint lists (select FAQ from the drop-down menu).
If you choose to use the knowledge base, the configuration of this section is complete.
If you choose to use SharePoint FAQ lists, you need to select the FAQ lists. To do this, click on the Configure button. You will see the following panel where you can enter:
the URLs of the sites where the FAQ lists are saved (you can add several URLs from different sites).
the URLs of the FAQ lists.
Once you have configured the FAQ lists, click on Save to close the panel.
Finally, you can choose the number of FAQs to show.
Category link settings
In this section, you have the ability to configure the fields that will increase the number of search results and enable the "Show more" option for specific sections like contacts, documents, news, pages, and apps. You can define the links you want to appear within the "Show more" button, which becomes visible when you conduct a content search. These links can direct users to the default SharePoint page for each section or to a dedicated page for a specific section, such as the News Archive. Follow the instructions below to set this up.
More contacts:
In this section, we recommend adding a link to the page where you have set up the People Directory web part. This will allow users who couldn't find the contact they were looking for in the search results to search for the contact directly in the People Directory. To activate the "More results" button, you need to enable the Use above URL to search for more results flag.
More Documents:
In this section, we recommend adding a link to the intranet's document area. In case you haven't created a specific document area, you can link to the default SharePoint page that displays all the documents on the site. To do this, simply append the following extension to the intranet site's URL:
/_layouts/15/search.aspx/sitefiles
e.g. https://intranetai.sharepoint.com/sites/my-hub/_layouts/15/search.aspx/sitefiles
More news:
In this section, we recommend adding a link to the intranet's News Archive page. In case you haven't created a News Archive page, you can link to the default SharePoint page that displays all the news on the site. To do this, simply append the following extension to the intranet site's URL:
/_layouts/15/search.aspx/sitenews
e.g. https://intranetai.sharepoint.com/sites/intranet/_layouts/15/search.aspx/sitenews
More pages:
Append the following extension to the intranet site's URL:
/_layouts/15/search.aspx/siteall
e.g. https://intranetai.sharepoint.com/sites/intranet/_layouts/15/search.aspx/siteall
More apps:
In this section, we recommend adding a link to the intranet's page where you have set up the Apps web part.
Custom titles settings
In this section, you can select a custom title that will be displayed as the heading for the various categories appearing in the search results. Just write the name you prefer:
Enter the custom title for the contacts section.
Enter the custom title for the documents section.
Enter the custom title for the news section.
Enter the custom title for the pages section.
Enter the custom title for the apps section.
Enter the custom title for the KB section.
Enter the custom placeholder for the search bar.
External links settings
This section allows you to enhance the Advanced Search web part by adding a link to an external source of information. For instance, you can add a button for searching on Google.
In the first field, enter the button label text, i.e., the text you would like to display on the button.
For example: Search on Google
In the second field, enter the URL you would like to use followed by the {searchText} placeholder.
For example: https://www.google.com/search?q={searchText}
The button will look like this:
General settings
Enter the taxonomy unique id: the taxonomy unique id is used to retrieve tag labels in the correct language.
In the next field, you can choose to leave default search bar of SharePoint active or not. In the last field, you can enter the minimum number of characters for the search.
Section order settings
Here you can choose the order of the information shown in the search bar. You can just drag and drop the tiles based on your choice.
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