A content source is a collection of content that is included in the search results. Content sources are created and managed within the Search Service application. Many different types of data can be included within a content source, including:

Server administrators are typically responsible for creating new content sources, since they are configured within the Central Administration management site. You can think of a content source as a pointer to a collection of data that you want to have returned within the search results.

IFilters define how the content within the content sources is indexed. In order for SharePoint to understand how to read and index the files, an IFilter must be installed. The common Microsoft products such as Word, PowerPoint, and Excel will, by default, have all of the proper IFilters installed with the SharePoint installation. Typically, environments will install additional IFilters for non-Microsoft file types; a common example of this is PDF files.

When a content source is created by a server admin, one of the configuration items is the crawl schedule. Crawling is the process that the SharePoint server uses to access the data within the content source and build the search index. The process is called crawling, and the crawl schedule refers to the frequency with which the index will be updated. The crawl schedule should be based on the frequency of the changes in the data. For example, if you had a file share location that you used to store archived project data, then you would probably not need to update the index often, because the data is archived and does not change often. On the other hand, your SharePoint sites are likely very active and dynamic and should be crawled on a very frequent basis.

The index is what SharePoint uses to store the data from the content sources once it has been crawled. The index files are updated during each crawl and then made available for search queries.

When you retrieve data from the index files, you will run a search query. This is often done through the entry of a search term in the search box. When you enter the search term, a query is conducted against the index files and the results that match your query are displayed.

Search scopes are a way to query a subset of data within content sources. As an example, a search scope could be used to search only against the file shares or the public website. Typically, in each environment, there are several global search scopes created, and then within each SharePoint site collection, more granular search scopes are created that relate specifically to a project. Later in this chapter, we will cover search scopes in detail and will have several Try It Outs dedicated to creating and using search scopes.

Keywords and best bets are a function of Search that allows you to help guide users to the content that best matches what they are looking for. Take the Holiday Calendar as an example. It is likely that many users will want to access this calendar from the intranet site. Each user will think differently, however, and will likely enter a different search term than another user. Using best bets and keywords, you can determine what the users are likely to search on and then ensure that the results you want to take them to are displayed clearly on the page.

Federated search provides the ability to incorporate indexes from other locations into your search results. This functionality will allow you to query multiple index locations at one time and will display the information on different web parts within the search results page.

The Search Center is an enterprise site definition that can be used within SharePoint sites. Typically, each organization has one central Search Center site that is used for all enterprise search queries.

While the concepts covered above aren't all-inclusive, they should give you a solid understanding of the search basics. Throughout the remainder of the chapter, you will work through the search configurations. You will start by looking at search out of the box. Once you understand what to expect when a new site is created, you will look at how to customize the search experience for the site collection. This will allow you to understand the creation of custom scopes, keywords, and even customize the way that the search results look. Once you have covered things at the site collection level, you will look at some of the global search service configurations. You will be working through a lot of examples in this chapter, so it will be a good idea to take a few minutes and make sure that you have a site collection that you can use for testing. If you have been following along through the previous chapters, the Try It Outs will be based on those sites, but if you are just picking up with this chapter, it will probably be a good idea to get a site ready before proceeding. You just need to have a single site collection with several different Office documents uploaded. The Try It Outs in this chapter will be created using examples of content that has been uploaded to the site in previous chapters. If you have not completed the previous examples, then you simply need to update your search queries to match data that currently exists within your environment.

So far, all of the examples in this chapter have been based on the default search settings. The default settings provide a great starting point and allow users to easily search for content within their site; however, these default settings are quite limited, and if they are not customized further, then you will be missing out on many of the great features included with SharePoint Enterprise Search. The rest of this chapter will be focused on the different customizations that can be made for search.

One of the newest features in SharePoint 2010 is the ability for users to manually enter Boolean Searches from a search box. The following Boolean properties (also referred to in places as logical operators) are supported within the search entry box:

These can be combined to form a search query. An example is ("Gear" OR "Machines") AND (title: "Presentation" OR title: "Report"). Entering this search query would return all items that contain Gear or Machines and have Presentation or Report in the title. Keep in mind when you are using the Boolean operators that they are case-sensitive, and if they are not in all CAPS, then they will be considered part of the search phrase and not an operator.

A prefix matching search is where a user adds a * to the end of a text phrase and then the search returns all the results that start with the text the user entered before the *. An example of this would be a user searching using the query "ba*" and getting the results for bake, ball, bacon, and backpack.

One of the wonderful features in SharePoint 2010 is the ability to do a people search based on the phonetic spelling of a user's name. This is a great feature because, in many cases, it can be difficult to know the spelling of all the users' names within your organization. Using phonetic search, you can enter the search term "Neal" and you will also get results for "Neale."

SharePoint 2010 includes a feature that will look at users' search queries and provide them will additional suggestions in the form of a "Did you mean?" suggestion. These suggestions are created from recent search queries, a dictionary, and a custom location where you can enter your own suggestions. This feature is great because it can help users easily identify and correct any mistakes within their search query.

The first option displayed under the Site Collection settings is Search Settings. From this screen, you will be able to configure the behavior of searching for all sites within the site collection. There are three different settings that you can modify from this page, including enabling search scopes, defining how the scopes drop-down is configured, and determining what search results page will be used to display your search results. Before we go any further with these configuration settings, there are a few items that you need to be sure you understand. Once you understand these items, you will be able to understand the different configuration options available to you.

TRY IT OUT: Create a Search Center Site

Since you will need to reference a Search Center in the next Try It Out, let's take a few minutes and walk through the process for creating a Search Center site. Since you want to take full advantage of the features installed, you are going to create a Search Center using the Enterprise Search Center template. Because this is an enterprise template, it requires that you have some of the Enterprise features enabled, so enabling these features will be the first step in the process.

1. Within your site collection, access the site settings page and access the Site Collection Feature page (see Figures 17-10 and 17-11 below).

   

   Figure 17-10. FIGURE 17-10

   

   Figure 17-11. FIGURE 17-11

2. If they are not activated, activate each of the features listed below:

   • Search Server Web Parts

   • SharePoint Server Enterprise Site Collection Features

   • SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure

3. From the Site Actions menu, select the New Site option. Once the new site page is loaded, enter the term "Search" in the Search Installed Items textbox, as shown in Figure 17-12, and press Enter. This will allow you to filter the available templates to only show those with "search" in their title.

4. Ensure that the Enterprise Search Center is selected; enter a title and URL for the new site and click the More Options button. On the More Options screen (see Figure 17-13), select the desired configuration options. Click Create, and the new Search Center site will be created.

5. Once the new site is created, you will be redirected to the Search page (See Figure 17-14). You will be referencing this URL in future exercises, so be sure to remember the configuration settings you used while creating this site.

   

   Figure 17-12. FIGURE 17-12

   

   Figure 17-13. FIGURE 17-13

How It Works

The Search template is a site definition that is preconfigured with all the different web parts and lists that are needed for configuring a Search Center. Creating this site is the first step in configuring the search experience for users.

Figure 17-14. FIGURE 17-14

Now that you have created the preliminary required Search Center, you will work your way through the search configurations for the site collection. If you need to navigate back to the search settings, simply click on the Site Actions menu, then click Site Settings, and then click the Search Settings link in the Site Collection Administration group.

Site Collection Search Dropdown Mode

The next configuration option will determine how the scopes you activated above will be displayed. Figure 17-16 shows the different configuration options available.

Figure 17-16. FIGURE 17-16

These options tend to be worded in a very technical nature, and often cause confusion for users who are trying to configure them for their site collection. Throughout the rest of this section, we are going to work through each of these configurations so that we can help reduce any confusion. For each grouping of configurations, an image will be added so that you can see how the display is altered.

Do not show scopes dropdown, and default to contextual scope

This is the default configuration that we have been using. No scopes drop-down is displayed and the initial search is done against the current site. An example is shown in Figure 17-17.

Figure 17-17. FIGURE 17-17

Do not show scopes dropdown, and default to target results page

For this configuration, no search drop-down is displayed and the search results are passed to the target results page. Since no scope is being specified, the results displayed will be based on the configurations of the target page. This means that if the target page is configured to return things from all scopes, then the search query you enter into this search box will return items from all scopes.

Show scopes dropdown

This configuration shows the scopes drop-down and includes all scopes configured for the site collection, including the contextual search scopes. The search scope will default to the scope configured as the default for the site collection. An example is shown in Figure 17-18.

Figure 17-18. FIGURE 17-18

Show, default to 's' URL parameter

This configuration shows the scopes drop-down and includes all scopes configured for the site collection. The search scope defaults to the parameter that is passed when the site is accessed. If no "s" parameter is defined in the page URL, then the page will load with the default search scope. An example of this is shown in Figure 17-19. Notice that the URL used to access the site contains the parameter s=People, which causes the search scope to default to the People search scope when that link is used to access the page.

Figure 17-19. FIGURE 17-19

Note

While it is configurable to pass an "s" parameter to the home page, it is not likely that this scenario would be encountered often. Where this is more likely is when you are configuring Search web parts or the Search Center. As you work through the Try It Outs later in this chapter, you will see how this "s" parameter can be used to create a rich experience for end users.

Show and default to contextual scope

This configuration option shows all of the search scopes but defaults to the contextual scope. This means that all the search scopes will be displayed for the site collection, but by default, the search will be done against the current site. Users will be able to specify a scope, but by default, they will search the current site. An example of this is shown in Figure 17-20.

Figure 17-20. FIGURE 17-20

Show, do not include contextual scopes

This configuration option will show the scopes drop-down but will exclude all of the contextual search scopes. An example is shown in Figure 17-21.

Figure 17-21. FIGURE 17-21

Show, do not include contextual scopes, and default to 's' URL parameter

This configuration option will show the scopes drop-down, exclude all of the contextual search scopes, and default the scope to the "s" parameter in the URL. An example is shown in Figure 17-22.

Figure 17-22. FIGURE 17-22

Now that you have configured the basic search settings for your site collection, you will move on to configuring custom search scopes. You defined search scopes earlier in this chapter as a way to create a subset of the index so that you were running queries only against that subset. Search scopes can be created at two different levels: global search scopes and site collection search scopes. Once a global search scope is created, it can be consumed by any site collection within the farm. Site collection search scopes are different from global search scopes in that they are limited to the specific site collection that they were configured within.

The search scope configuration pages can be accessed from the Site Settings Page, under the Site Collection Administration option. Figure 17-28 shows the configuration screen. In the remainder of this section, you will work through the different configuration options available within this page. You will start by first creating a new scope and then conclude by modifying the different display groups.

Figure 17-28. FIGURE 17-28

New Scope

The New Scope option on the configuration screen allows you to create and configure a new search scope. When you select this option, a form is generated that requires you to configure the new search scope. You start by first giving your scope a unique name. This is the name that will be displayed in the Search drop-down. You then select one of the following options for your display group:

• Search Dropdown: When you select this item, your search scope will be displayed within the search drop-down box.

• Advanced Search: When you select this item, your search scope will be displayed on the Advanced Search page.

When selecting the display group, you can select one, both, or neither. Keep in mind that, if you select neither, then users will only be able to query the search scope by manually adding the "s" parameter to the search query URL or through a custom solution. Finally, you are able to select one of two target results page options:

• Use the default Search Results Page: Selecting this option will use the default results page that has been configured for the site in the Search Settings.

• Specify a different page for searching this scope: Selecting this option will allow you to enter a specific search results page's URL.

Note

Keep in mind that changing the search results page here will change it for only one specific scope. While this may be the desired behavior, this may also cause confusion for your end users. Be sure to think through various use cases to make sure that the decisions you are making around these settings will not cause any undue confusion to your users.

Figure 17-29 provides an example of a new scope configuration page where the scope will be allowed for both the Search Drop-down and the Advanced Search and where the results will be presented on the default search results page.

Figure 17-29. FIGURE 17-29

Once you click OK on the scope creation screen, you will be redirected to the scope settings page. You will notice that, just as in Figure 17-30, your new scope is displayed with the status of "Empty-Add Rules."

Figure 17-30. FIGURE 17-30

Rules are the guidelines that the scope uses to determine what content from the index should be included in the scope. A single scope can have many different rules within it. Rules are built one at a time and then, as the scope is compiled, all rules are executed to ensure that only the content you specify is included in the search. If you click on the Add Rules link, you will be redirected to the Rules Configuration page. On this page, there are three main configuration areas. As you select the option on the top of the page, you will be prompted for the required values to complete the form. Each of the Rule Types requires different values for configuration.

• Web Address: This is the URL of a specific site. When you select this option, you are required to enter a valid location for one of the following options (see Figure 17-31):

  • Folder

  • Hostname

  • Domain or Subdomain

  

  Figure 17-31. FIGURE 17-31

• Property Query: This is the option you select if you want to include or exclude content based on a property such as author, file extension, or creation date. When you select this option, you are required to select the property that you want to query against and then enter the value that will be used for validation. If the equation equates to true, then the rule is executed for that item (see Figure 17-32).

  

  Figure 17-32. FIGURE 17-32

  Note

  The values available for selection in the scope rules are for properties that have been mapped in the search service configuration. For the purpose of this example, we are not covering how to create managed properties; you are just consuming the managed properties that have already been created within the environment.

• All Content: You select this option if you want to pull content from all content sources (see Figure 17-33).

  

  Figure 17-33. FIGURE 17-33

Rules based on a web address or a property also have a configured behavior. This scope looks at the behavior of all the created rules to determine what is included and excluded from the scope. Since you can have multiple rules, it is possible that one rule includes content, while another excludes it. There are three specific options for behavior:

• Include: This means that if the rule equates to true for a particular item, it will be included in the scope, as long as there is no other rule that excludes it.

• Require: This means that the rule must equate to true for every item in the scope.

• Exclude: This means that if the rule equates to true, then the item will be excluded from the scope.

Once you click OK, you are redirected to the Scope Properties and Rules page. Figure 17-34 shows an example of this page. From this page, you can configure additional rules for the scope and also modify the general scope settings. Also note that you can see a summary of the rules you created, which includes an approximate Item Count from the index. This page will also show an update status for the scope. Scopes are recompiled on a scheduled basis, which means that there will likely be a short delay between you making your changes and the scope being updated. The status line item will inform you when the next scope update is scheduled. An example of this update can be seen in Figure 17-35.

Figure 17-34. FIGURE 17-34

Figure 17-35. FIGURE 17-35

This page can be accessed at any time from the Scope Settings page. Once you are on this page, there is really no easy way to navigate back to the Scope Settings page. So, when you are on this page, click the Site Settings link in the breadcrumbs and then select the Scope Settings link to return the summary page.

Display Groups

There are two configurable display groups for search scopes, the search drop-down and the advanced search. So far in this chapter, we have only worked through the search drop-down. We will be covering the advanced search further in the chapter, once we get to the Search Center. Within each display group, you can configure which scopes are visible, which order they are displayed in, and which scope is the default scope for the display group. To access these settings, click on the Display Groups link on the top of the Search Scopes settings page. From this page, click on the group you would like to modify to open the configuration page. An example of this page is shown in Figure 17-36.

Figure 17-36. FIGURE 17-36

Refresh

You have probably noticed the link called Refresh across many of the Search Scope management pages. This link is provided as a tool to refresh the information on the page. This could be helpful if you are waiting to see when the next scope update will be. This link only needs to be used when you have the page open for an extended period, and serves the same purpose as doing a refresh within the web browser.

TRY IT OUT: Create a Custom Search Scope

In this Try It Out, you will create a custom search scope. You will use the scenario of working within a sales department. Within the sales department site collection, you are storing many different presentations. You would like to create a search scope so that you can search through all presentations. There are a few ways that you could determine which documents were presentations, including the use of content types or metadata. For this example, however, you are going to base your scope requirements on the file extension. You are doing this because you know that all presentations are created in PowerPoint.

1. Within your site collection, access the site settings page and access the Search Scopes Settings Page.

2. Select the New Scope option and configure your scope with the following options (see Figure 17-37):

   PROPERTY	VALUE
   Title	Presentations
   Description	A scope created for all presentation files
   Last Modified	Leave as default
   Search Drop-down	Yes
   Advanced Search	Yes
   Use the default Search Results Page	Yes

   

   Figure 17-37. FIGURE 17-37

3. Select the Add Rule link on the View Scopes page, and configure the rule with the following properties (see Figure 17-38):

   PROPERTY	VALUE
   Scope Rule Type	Property Query
   Property Query	FileExtension = pptx
   Behavior	Include

   

   Figure 17-38. FIGURE 17-38

4. Click OK. Notice that you are redirected to the View Scopes page and that your scope status shows that you are a new scope and gives an approximate time before the next update (see Figure 17-39).

   

   Figure 17-39. FIGURE 17-39

5. Since you know not all users are going to be using the latest version of Office, you are also going to add a rule for .ppt files. From the View Scopes page, click on the Presentations scope and open the Scope Properties and Rules page.

6. Click the New Rule link and configure a new rule with the following properties:

   PROPERTY	VALUE
   Scope Rule Type	Property Query
   Property Query	FileExtension = ppt
   Behavior	Include

7. Click on the Site Settings breadcrumb, and then open the Search Scope Settings page.

8. Once the status for your scope has changed to Ready, navigate back to the Site Collection home page.

9. On the home page, you should now see your new scope within the scope drop-down (see Figure 17-40).

10. Enter the search term gear into the search box, and press Enter. Notice that all of the search results are PowerPoint files and the search scope in the URL is set to Presentations (see Figure 17-41).

How It Works

In this Try It Out, you created a custom search scope. This scope will be compiled against all the indexes, and if the items in the index meet your scope criteria, they will be included in the scope searches. Whenever users choose to query against your scope, they will be searching only within the items that meet your criteria.

Figure 17-40. FIGURE 17-40

Figure 17-41. FIGURE 17-41

There is one final thing that we need to cover before moving on from search scopes, and that is the ability to make a copy of an existing search scope and save it as a new search scope. This is a great way to create a baseline scope that can be used as a template for additional scopes. The Copy command is located in the Item Control Block on the View Scopes page. When you select the Make Copy option, a new scope is created with the name "Copy of Scope." You can then access that scope and change the title and modify the rules. You will notice that, when the site is created, it is added to a Display Group called Unused Scopes. This occurs because, by default, the copy of the scope is not added to the same display groups as the scope. This allows you to update and configure the copy as needed, before adding it to one of the display groups. Figure 17-42 shows the location of the copy command, and Figure 17-43 shows the newly created search scope copy.

Figure 17-42. FIGURE 17-42

Figure 17-43. FIGURE 17-43

The final configuration option within the site collection is Search Keywords and Best Bets. Search keywords and best bets are a way to help ensure that users are able to quickly find the content they are looking for. Let's look at the example of users who want to view the vacation calendar. It is likely that some users will search on the term "vacation," while others will use the term "holiday," and some others may use the phrase "office closed." They are all trying to access one thing, and they are all using what they view as the correct phrase to locate the data. Given this situation, what if the actual document they were looking for was titled "Corporate Schedule"? In this case, none of the users would find the content they were looking for. One way to ensure that this doesn't happen is by creating keywords and best bets. This functionality would allow you to provide a best bet link whenever a user searched using a collection of synonyms that you provide. This way, you can think ahead and, based on what you think the user will be using for search terms, you can create the matching keywords and best bets. Whenever a user searches with one of the keywords you identified, the best bet is returned on the search results page formatted with a star. Figure 17-44 is an example of a search that is returning a best bet based on a keyword.

Figure 17-44. FIGURE 17-44

The great thing about keywords is that they are easy to create and maintain. As part of their configuration, you can specify a start date, an expiration date, and a review date. Whomever you assign as the owner of the keyword will get notifications when the keyword review data arrives. With the expiration dates, you can also push content during seasons of high demand. An example of this could be the end of each year, when you are working on benefits reenrollment. During that time of the year, it is likely that you will want to help users navigate directly to the content they are likely searching for.

Best bets and keywords are a great way for you to help narrow the users' search results to the content they are likely looking for, but what if you don't know what they are looking for? SharePoint provides tools to help you analyze what searches your users are generating, and based on those searches, these tools will recommend best bets for the site collection. All of these reports can be easily accessed from the Keywords Management screen.

A Search Center is a type of site template that is included when SharePoint is installed. There are several different templates that are available, based on the level of licensing you have installed, including:

The Basic Search Center, shown in Figure 17-48, comes preconfigured for everything that you need to get started with Search. As you see, there is a search entry box, options for Advanced search, and even a link for users to configure preferences. The Enterprise Search Center, shown in Figure 17-49, comes preconfigured with all of the options in the Basic Search Center and several additional features, including the ability to create a tabbed search interface so that users can easily switch between tabs to conduct different search types, such as People and All Sites.

When people first start working with the Search Center templates, it is easy to get confused and overwhelmed. There are a lot of working parts, and sometimes, it can be hard to tell what pieces connect and keep things all together. The best thing to do is to start with the basics. As you learned earlier in the book, a site template is nothing more than a blank site with preconfigured lists, libraries, pages, and web parts. The Search Center is no different. In the following sections, we are going to review all of the different Search web parts, and then, once you know what you are working with, you will look at how they are combined to create such a rich search experience for users.

Figure 17-48. FIGURE 17-48

Figure 17-49. FIGURE 17-49

Each page that is created within the Search Center is built using preconfigured web parts. This means that the template is created ready to go, with all the needed parts and pieces connected and configured. These web parts, while they come preconfigured, are simply web parts. This means that they can be added to pages and then configured to behave using the parameters we configured in the Web Part tool pane. This also means that you can modify the behavior of the preconfigured web parts within each of the pages.

Advanced Search Box

This web part provides users an interface for building a search query that uses multiple properties and phrase combinations (see Figure 17-50). Within this web part, you can configure what elements are included on the page and what elements are excluded. Each of the elements within the box is configurable, for example the image below shows the option to search by language. This option, along with others, is configurable within the web part so that you can completely remove it from the advanced search box.

Figure 17-50. FIGURE 17-50

People Search Box

This is the search box that users will use when they are searching for a person (see Figure 17-53). This web part can be configured to include the scopes drop-down, to suggest search terms, and to append additional search terms to the user query.

Figure 17-51. FIGURE 17-51

Figure 17-52. FIGURE 17-52

Figure 17-53. FIGURE 17-53

People Search Core Results

This search box connects to the People Search Box web part and displays the search results (see Figure 17-54).

Figure 17-54. FIGURE 17-54

Search Action Links

This web part provides users with links to the actions that can be activated for the search results, including sort order, search alerts, RSS feeds, and Window Explorer Search (see Figure 17-56). This web part is configurable so that you can select which actions you want to have displayed.

Figure 17-55. FIGURE 17-55

Figure 17-56. FIGURE 17-56

Search Best Bets

This web part will return all of the best bests for the search query (see Figure 17-57). The best bets are configured and stored within the site collection search settings and then, based on the user query, returned within this web part. This web part can be configured to display only certain information, such as the link or the description, as well as to limit the number of best bets displayed.

Figure 17-57. FIGURE 17-57

Search Box

This is the search box that users will use when they are entering a general query (see Figure 17-58). This web part can be configured to include the scopes drop-down, to suggest search terms, and to append additional search terms to the user query.

Figure 17-58. FIGURE 17-58

Search Core Results

This search box connects to the Search Box web part and displays the search results (see Figure 17-59).

Figure 17-59. FIGURE 17-59

Search Paging

This web part is used to configure the way that the search results will be paged (see Figure 17-60). Within this web part, you can configure the number of pages to be displayed, as well as the images used to denote the next and previous options.

Figure 17-60. FIGURE 17-60

Search Statistics

This web part displays the summary information about the search, including the number of hits and the number displayed on the current page (see Figure 17-61). You can configure this web part to display information on multiple lines and to display additional information, such as the search response time.

Figure 17-61. FIGURE 17-61

Search Summary

This web part is also known as the "Did you mean?" web part (see Figure 17-62). When queries are entered and a misspelling or alternate spelling is identified, the web part will provide that information to users, allowing them to update their search query.

Figure 17-62. FIGURE 17-62

Top Federated Search Results

This web part will return a specified number of results from a federated search location (see Figure 17-63). This would allow you to show the top one or two results in one location on the page, with the remainder in the federated search results web part. This web part can be configured to display a specific number of results as well as configuration settings, such as the description and URL length.

Figure 17-63. FIGURE 17-63

TRY IT OUT: Customizing the Search Results Page

Now that you have reviewed all of the web parts available for search configuration, let's take a few minutes and customize some of the web parts. You will start by configuring the search entry page, and then, you will modify the search results page.

1. Navigate to the Enterprise Search Center that you created earlier in the chapter and select Site Actions

   
   

   Figure 17-64. FIGURE 17-64

   Note

   In this Try It Out, you are going to focus on the search web parts and ignore the search tabs. You will work with the search tabs in the next section.

2. Edit the Properties for the Search web part to include the scopes drop-down by configuring the tool pane with the following properties:

   PROPERTY	VALUE
   Dropdown Mode	Show, do not include contextual scopes, and default to "s" URL parameter.
   Dropdown Label	Scope
   All Other Fields	Accept the defaults.

3. Click Apply, and you will see that the web part is updated to reflect the changes you applied. Save and Close the current page to exit Edit Mode (see Figure 17-65).

   

   Figure 17-65. FIGURE 17-65

4. Enter the search term gear into the search box, and press Enter. This is the quickest way to open the search results page. Once the page is opened, we will be able to switch to edit mode and then modify the web parts.

5. Select Site Actions

   

6. Take a few minutes and explore each of the Web Part tool panes. This will allow you to see all of the different configurations you can use for each of the web parts.

7. Click the Add a Web Part link in the Right Zone.

8. Select the Search Categories in the Web Parts selection pane and select the Federated Results web part in the Web Parts Category, and then click Add.

9. Once the web part is added to the page, select the link to edit the web part properties.

10. Within the Web Part tool pane, configure the following options:

    • Location: Internet Search Results

    • For all other fields, accept the defaults.

    

    Figure 17-66. FIGURE 17-66

11. Click Apply, and you will see that the web part is updated to reflect the changes we applied. Save and Close the current page to exit edit mode.

12. Enter the search term active directory into the search box and press Enter. Notice that even though we had no results from the SharePoint index, we still are able to return the federated search results (see Figure 17-67).

    

    Figure 17-67. FIGURE 17-67

How It Works

Search results are delivered through configurable web parts. In this example, you modified the configuration of several different web parts, thus changing the way the information is displayed to the end user.

Now that you have a good idea on the configuration of the Search web parts within the Search Center, let's loop our way back to the concept of the Search Center tabs. Tabs are a way within the Search Center to create an interface that allows users to quickly select and conduct searches. These tabs are really just links to a special page layout that contains the tab control. You will notice that, if you click the People tab on the Enterprise Search Center home page, you are actually being redirected to a new page. This is also true of the People tab on the search results page. Figure 17-68 shows this concept in action.

Figure 17-68. FIGURE 17-68

There are two components to a Search Center tab: the tab that is displayed on the page and the page that the tab links to. In order to create the tab, the page must already exist. If you try to create a tab without the page, you will get an error. There are two page layouts for tab pages:

Each of these page layouts comes preconfigured with the search box or the search results web parts, which gives you a great template to get started with. Tabs can be stored in two locations, the search box and the search results. Out of the box, the All Sites and the People tab are configured for both locations.