SharePoint Search Scopes-Part1

spaudel — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:23:00 GMT

What are Scopes? How to Use?

Scopes are a logical view on index. With scope, a section of the index can be defined effectively ahead of the query time based on some rules and users can execute search query against that specific scope only.

To demostrate the the usage of scopes in sharepoint search, lets consider a scenario where you would like to define a scope to be able to search on your fileshare documents only. In other words, lets add a new scope called "FileShare" to the scope dropdown of the search box as shown:

Step1 :Creating a content source to crawl your fileshare

Scopes can be based on either Managed Property or Content source or web Address. I'm going to create a content source to crawl our file fileshare.

Browse to the central administration site and Click the SSP for the site collection.
Click on search settings and then Content sources and crawl schedules.
Click on New Content Source link.
Create a content source by entering the required details. Check the attachment below for reference.

Step2 :Creating a scope based on the content source

We created a content source that crawls our fileshare. In this step, we will create a scope based on the content source.

Browse to the central administration site and Click the SSP for the site collection.

Click on search settings and then Click on view Scopes.

Click on new scope link.

Enter title as "FileShare" and leave other details as blank and Click OK.

Click on Add Rules option for the the scope "FileShare"

Select the content source created for the fileshare in step #1 as shown and Click OK.

Step3:Adding the scope to a scope display group

A scope display group is used to organize a list of scopes. The scope display group is then assigned to a search box to be able to search on those scopes.Lets add our scope "FileShare" created on step #2 to a scope display group.

Browse to the site collection for your search center (This is the site collection which has your search page).
Select Site actions>Site settings>Search scopes. The page attached below will be shown. Please note the scope "FileShare" has no scope display group assigned at this time. We can either create a new display group and add scopes or add our scope to an existing group.

Click on the scope display group "Search Dropdown" and Select our scope "FileShare".

Step3:Using the scope display group for a search box web part

The scope display group "Search Dropdown" has our scope included in it. In this step, we will ensure that our search box webpart uses this scope display group.

Browse to the search page and select site actions>edit page.
Select edit>modify shared webpart on the search box web part.
On the properties pane, expand the section miscellaneous and check the property value for the property scope display group as shown.

Step4:Updating the scope

Unless the scope is updated, it will not appear on the scopes dropdown of the search box webpart. To update the scope, follow the steps below.

Browse to the central administration site and Click the SSP for the site collection.

Click on search settings and then Click on Start update now.

That's it. The scope "FileShare" must be available on the scopes dropdown of the search box webpart. If it does not, you would want to make sure that show scope dropdown option is selected for the webpart as shown.

With this, our scope is ready to be used.

We are done with part1 of the post on SharePoint Search scopes. The next and the last part will be on scope rules and scope behavior starting with various types of scope. Keep watching.

Sanjaya on SharePoint Search : scopes groups, sharepoint search

SharePoint Search Scopes-Part1