FAST SharePoint Search

SharePoint Search Options

Jeff Dunmall — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:46:59 GMT

With all of the versions of Microsoft’s search engine available, it is very confusing to know how they are related, and what each version provides. I’ve prepared the following graphic to help pull all of the information together into one place (c lick...(read more)

Enterprise Search: Ask for help after you have a starting point

Jeff Dunmall — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:28:14 GMT

Your employees can't remember all of the information sources inside your company, much less keep track of the search interfaces that exist. Each of the following system likely has its own search interface: SAP for customer data, Ariba for expense...(read more)

Enterprise Search: Why Search Scoping Doesn’t Work

Jeff Dunmall — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:57:00 GMT

My previous post outlined the problem with the ‘traditional’ approach to search scoping. To explore the problem and a solution that leverages Microsoft FAST search, I’ve invented a fictitious company called Canadian Financial . That...(read more)

The Problem: Why Employees Can’t Find What They Are Looking For

Jeff Dunmall — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:34:00 GMT

It is easy to create content. Fire up a Word document and post it, or create a sub-site on your Intranet and add pages. Even creating a new web site isn’t hard anymore – most business users can go through a process to launch one quickly. The benefit: quickly converting corporate knowledge into something that can be consumed by others. The challenge: it is up to the end user to ‘know’ where to find it, and that often doesn’t happen.

There is good news. Today’s search engines make it easy to hook up new sources of content. Check out the solution you have today for internal search and hunt around for a dropdown box of options. There are probably dozens. Each time a new web site comes online internally, the search engine needs to be pointed at it. It probably includes: HR content, news, product information, service information, people directory, manuals & procedures, links to tools, potentially file shares, email, collaboration environments like SharePoint, plus perhaps a Documentum or Interwoven, and likely multiplied by geography, business units, secured content, or all of the above.

The user is faced with two options: 1) choose a source, or 2) search everything. Lets look at each in more detail.

1) Choose a Source – this option requires an employee to know what a three or four word description means, and what kind of content is likely to be included. It also assumes that it is possible to name the content, and that generally a single type is available. As that is often not possible (consider how many different types of content you have on your ‘Intranet’), the sources get redefined to be more granular. The result: many more options to choose from. Realistically end users cannot be expected to hunt through this list to find the right one, which leads to most choosing the second option.

2) Search Everything – This is often the default: search across all content under index and provide a result set. That can include hundreds of thousands of items, and as you get all of your content under index it can easily span millions of entries. This option assumes two things. First, that your search engine can bring back the top 10 relevant results every time based on a few words of input, and second that each result should be displayed in the same format (typically, title, link, preview, plus potentially a date). Do those assumptions seem reasonable?

So, what to do? More on that soon.

Enterprise Search: Does the Name Help or Hurt?

Jeff Dunmall — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:08:21 GMT

If you’re looking for an internal search solution you’ve probably heard the term Enterprise Search kicking around. It generally applies putting in an internal search solution that can broadly index content (file shares, email, SharePoint, etc) and provide a search interface for your employees.

It assumes a few things. First, that the solution applies to all employees. After all, don’t all employees need the ability to search through their knowledge work? Isn’t search just like email? The key flawed assumption: all employees share the same underlying search problem.

I certainly agree from a strategy perspective. An Enterprise Search Strategy can help identify the holistic approach to rolling out and implementing a search solution. That may be where the usefulness of the term ‘Enterprise’ ends.

I think it is more constructive to think of search in the way you currently think of your database platform. Don’t databases require real business applications to be useful to their end users? Would you attempt to justify the purchase of a database without the needs of a specific group of users in mind? Search solutions should be approached the same way – they have a specific set of users in mind, and the solution should be tuned to provide the best search experience possible.

Here is a clear symptom of that problematic assumption: are you having a hard time building a Enterprise Search business case? If the search solution is inexpensive, like a Google Search Appliance or Microsoft Search Server, then a business case isn’t as important and you probably are using the ‘we just need it’ argument to justify the expense. That’s valid. However, if you are spending significantly more on a platform like FAST or Autonomy, you need a solid business case. One of the best ways to accomplish that is to know specifically who the solution is for, and precisely what benefit you’ll drive by deploying it. That concept contradicts the ‘Enterprise’ assumption we often start with.

My suggestion: look for a group of users that share a common knowledge discovery challenge, and work on building a search solution and a business case around them. Look for a group that is large enough to support a business case, but not so large that their job functions diverge and therefore their search needs are too broad. Also, establish an overall Enterprise Search Strategy so this and future search solutions can fit into a cohesive plan.