What’s new within SharePoint 2013 Search? – PART III

PART III: A look in the deep what’s behind the new Search functions like “Search Dictionaries”, “Query Builder”, “Query Client Type” etc.
(Concern that this is BETA stuff. Features and functions can be changed or shift until the final release!)

New / Updates Ranking Model functions:

Custom ranking models are managed through PowerShell using XML files as it was in SharePoint 2010. Ranking Model for a specific query can be selected at query time by setting the RankingModelId of the query; otherwise default is used.

The PowerShell cmdlet is: New-SPEnterpriseSearchRankingModel

For more details about the underlying XML schema have a look here: LINK

So this example shows all Ranking Models in my demo system. And you can see which default is:

You can use the configured Ranking Models for example in the Query Builder (details see below in the Query Builder Section):

Query Spelling Correction:

This function is hosted in the Termstore. We can now easy configure “Exclusion” and “Inclusion” Terms. Another big benefit is, that Terms configured in the “Inclusion” Termset also used for “Did you mean” functionality.

So this example showing in the Pic would result in searching for ”EI” and didn’t get any results the system will suggest “Did you mean ExpertsInside”

Query Rules:

Query Rules are new in SharePoint 2013. It is a feature that gives us the option to tailor results in a very flexible way. Query Rules are set on Site Collection Level.

A Query Rule has 3 main parts:

-          Query Conditions

o   The conditions defined when and in which context the rule became active:

-          Query Action

o   In this section we can defined what happened if the rules matched. This is just a little bit similar to what we know as “Best Bets” or “Visual Best Bets” from SharePoint 2010, but much more powerful.

-          Publishing Options

o   These settings control when the rule can fire

Query Client Types:

Query Client Types are also new in SharePoint 2013 Search. At this time poorly not really more details are available on this new function. The idea behind is using the client the query is send from to do specific throttling etc: “Applications are prioritized by tiers. Top tier has the highest priority. When resource limit is reached, query throttling becomes ON, and search system will process the queries from top tier to bottom tier.”

Query Builder:

Query Builder is a tool in SharePoint 2013 Search which we can find in different places. For example the Query Builder is available in the “Result Sources” section (Result Sources are in the next Part IV – Admin Stuff) and also in the “Query Rule” section etc. Query Builder is available when we have the option to manipulate search query ore refine it. The Query Builder has 3 tabs:

-          Basic:

o   The Query is built here. You can use Keyword Query Language to add keyword filters and property filters. Keyword filters query the full-text search index.

This call for example will only show content where the “Author” is the logged on user.

-          Sorting:

o   Here we can manage how the results are sorted. We can use a Ranking Model ore use a Managed Property for that job

-          Test:

o   Test tab in the Query Builder is to evaluate the query that you built. You can experiment there to see whether changing variables would have the effect that you want on the query.

Stay tuned for the next parts in this series:

Part IV: Admin Stuff

Part V: Frontend Stuff