SharePoint Search and RTF File Indexing

December 30, 2011 2 Comments

image

Found out today while answering a #SPHelp question for my buddy Eric Harlan, that SharePoint 2010 does not natively index RTF files, it requires an iFilter.

Luckily, there is an easy answer to it, which came back in a Google Books preview of Pro SharePoint 2010 Search. Click the link for details – http://go.gvaro.net/tLqruO

I also learned that FAST search does however index RTF files by default, thanks to @NauplisTrevor

image

The good news is – you can still learn something new every day! And by all means, if you do learn something new about SharePoint, share it with the rest of the world by blogging, tweeting, or, the old school method of writing it in sidewalk chalk on your driveway (you may want to put a tarp over it if it rains however, as it will wash away. I found this out the hard way…).

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Filed under SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Search Tagged with , , , , ,

Stay away from my search result pages [insert search engine name here] bot!!

December 27, 2011 Leave a comment

imageNow, this is a bit overkill, but, there are almost as many different ways a search crawler makes use of a robots.txt file as there are search engines (this may be highly over-exaggerated, but anyways…).

Now, one thing you probably do not want with your public facing site, is for the search engine to waste it’s time crawling your search pages. You don’t exactly want a high page rank for your site’s search results, do you?

What to do, what to do?

Well, if your search results pages happen to live under /search/pages/results.aspx, here is an example. This again is a bit overkill, but it should get the job done. Now the search engines can focus on what you want to be getting searched for – your content!

Some search bots allow for wildcards, some are case insensitive, some are case sensitive – hence the number of variations below. Add this into your robots.txt, and you should be good to go.

Disallow: /search/pages/results.aspx
Disallow: /Search/Pages/Results.aspx
Disallow: /Search/Pages/results.aspx
Disallow: /Search/pages/Results.aspx
Disallow: /search/Pages/Results.aspx
Disallow: /search/pages/Results.aspx
Disallow: /Search/pages/results.aspx
Disallow: /search/Pages/results.aspx
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /Search/
sallow: /search/pages/
Disallow: /Search/Pages/
Disallow: /Search/pages/
Disallow: /search/Pages/
Disallow: /*Results.aspx
Disallow: /*results.aspx

Any additions? Please share them here in the comments!

Filed under SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Search Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Slides from Week3 Session–Who? What? Where? Searching in SharePoint

September 28, 2011 Leave a comment

Thank you all who attended my Week3 webinar today! I always enjoy chances to speak, and enjoy being involved in Week3. Generally my sessions are more technical than not, and Week3 gives me a great chance to bring it down to the business user level.

As promised – here are the slides from my session today. Please leave me feedback letting me know how you thought it went, and if you have any questions!

Be sure to catch other Week3 webinars in the coming months – lots of good content from great speakers. Within the next couple of days, a recording of today’s webinar will be available here: http://www.week3.org/Pages/Sessions.aspx

Filed under Events, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, Week3 Tagged with , , , ,

Speaking at Week3–Collaboration Technology Interest Group on September 21st, 2011

August 18, 2011 2 Comments

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One of the groups I help out with has been Week3. And while I have helped in the planning and marketing of it for some time, I have yet to speak for one of its online sessions. This is changing next month, I will be presenting a session on search. See below for more information on Week3, as well as the session, and I hope you can make it! (it’s free, and online!)

 

Who? What? Where? – Searching in SharePoint

This session will cover the importance of search in a SharePoint environment, as well has how to make use of it from the end user, site collection administrator level. We will not discuss search architecture, or managing search in Central Administration. This session will focus on finding information, as well as making information findable.

When: September 21st, 2011 – 11AM EST

Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/898927585

 

What is Week3?

We are an online interest group designed to provide a platform of discussion and learning around how collaboration technologies can optimize business productivity. Our focus is on ROI, not code.

Week3’s mission is to create an open, unbiased community of business professionals, dedicated to the growth and development of collaboration techniques, using technologies such as Microsoft SharePoint (2010, MOSS, WSS) as a means to improving organizational productivity.

For more information on Week3, visit http://www.week3.org

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Wildcard Search for Forms Based Authentication Users in the SharePoint 2010 People Picker Not Working

December 30, 2010 2 Comments

wildcard

The Problem

Ran into an issue today with a client. We have their site configured for mixed authentication in SharePoint 2010 – using both Windows Authentication for internal users, and Forms Based Authentication (FBA) users, using the default SQL Membership Provider. The problem was that we could wildcard search Active Directory users, but, not FBA users. Interesting. If we typed in their username exactly, it came up just fine. Otherwise, well… nothing.

I had no idea what the issue could have been, so… I did a little digging around, and was able to come up with the solution!

 

The Resolution

The fix, is quite easy! Thanks to this post I came across: http://mikevallotton.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/sharepoint-2010-claims-authentication-custom-login-form-part-1-modifying-your-config-files/, I had a “duh!” moment. When setting up the FBA provider originally, I seemed to have skipped a step – adding the Membership and Role providers into the PeoplePickerWildcards section of the web.config.

<configuration>
    …
    <SharePoint>
        …
        <PeoplePickerWildcards>
          <clear />
          <add key="SQL-RoleManager" value="%" />
          <add key="SQL-MembershipProvider" value="%" />
        </PeoplePickerWildcards>
        …
    </SharePoint>
    …
</configuration>

That did the trick, now both my roles and users can be searched via wildcard in the People Picker in SharePoint 2010. Hopefully this helps others out!

Filed under SharePoint, SharePoint 2010 Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

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