Optimizing SharePoint Search for Transactional Content Management (TCM)
About Hershey Technologies…
• Founded in 1991
• Microsoft Partner
• Specialists in • Document Imaging / Scanning
• OCR (data and document capture)
• ECM
• BPM / workflow
• End to End SharePoint Consulting Services
• Follow us on Twitter: @HersheyTech
About Tom Castiglia…
•Principal at Hershey Technologies • Twitter: @tomcastiglia
• Email: [email protected]
• Joined Hershey Tech in 1998
•Director of Hershey’s professional services team since 2001
Agenda
• Explanation of “Transactional Content Management” (TCM)
• Overview of SharePoint features that are relevant to TCM
• How to make SharePoint support TCM
• Demo of solutions that fill the feature gaps to ensure SharePoint is successful for your transactional content management project• Ad-hoc scanning / document capture into SharePoint
• Optimizing SharePoint search for large scale TCM deployments
• Enable collaboration of static, transactional documents
• Make scanned images and PDF documents a 1st class citizen within SharePoint
Topics not covered in this presentation• Assumptions - I presume that you understand:• Columns (document metadata)
• Content Types
• Document Libraries
• Other topics not covered (just not enough time to include):• Automated Data Capture/OCR
• Records Management
• Workflow
• RBS
Enterprise Content Management in SharePoint
SharePoint Rocks at this!
Web Content
SharePoint Rocks at this!
Document Collaboration
SharePoint needs a little help here
Transactional Documents
What is “Transactional Content Management”?
“high-volume throughput of relatively static documents”
“content which typically originates outside and organization from external parties – customers or partners-and relies on workflow or business process management (BPM) to drive transactional, back-office business processes.”
-Forrester Research
Typical types of documentsTRANSACTIONAL DOCUMENTS
• Purchase Orders
• Vendor Invoices
• Application Forms
• Insurance claims
• Student Records
• Enrollment Forms
• (Not project based)
COLLABORATIVE DOCUMENTS• Proposals, reports,
spreadsheets, presentations and other documents created and edited by knowledge worker users• Office docs (Word, Excel,
PowerPoint)
• PDF files
• Created and uploaded on an ad-hoc basis to support day to day operations
• (Often project based)
How documents are typically received
TRANSACTIONAL DOCUMENTS
Fax Server
[email protected]@mycompany.com
OCRForm
Processing
External Systems
(AP, claims, etc.)
Information Architecture
TRANSACTIONAL CONTENT
• Centralized
• Often isolated to just one or a few site collections• Document Center or Record
Center
• Thousands to millions of documents per library
COLLABORATIVE CONTENT
• Decentralized
• Documents are often spread throughout many site collections, sub-sites, libraries and content types
• Typically under 5K documents per library.
How users find documentsTRANSACTIONAL DOCUMENTS
• Navigation doesn’t work - too many documents per library
• Search via metadata queries only• Ignore document content
• Ignore social based algorithms like ratings
• Users expect intuitive, graphical query builders to specify precise search conditions against one or more metadata fields.
COLLABORATION SCENARIOS
• Navigation• SiteSub-
SiteLibraryFolderDocument
• Keyword Search• Searches both metadata and
document content
• Use of social algorithms improve search results (e.g. highly rated documents are returned above other documents)
How users find documentsTRANSACTIONAL DOCUMENT SEARCH
TYPICAL SHAREPOINT SEARCH
What about Metadata Navigation and Filtering?
• This native SharePoint feature does provide a limited query builder …• Allows users to query against specific SharePoint columns and
choose various search operators (Equals, At Most, At Least, On, Before, etc.)
• Filters document library providing results in a sortable, tabular display.
Limits of Metadata Navigation and Filtering
• Doesn’t support text columns
• Transactional documents generally need text based columns for fields like InvoiceNumber, PONumber, VendorId, ClaimNumber, etc.
• Doesn’t scale well for libraries that exceed the list view threshold (5,000 documents by default)
Integrating Metadata with Search
Metadata
Columns
Crawled Properti
es
Managed
Properties
Search Results
Four Challenges to Transactional Content Management in SharePoint• Configuring Managed Properties in SharePoint Search is
more complex than it needs to be.
• SharePoint does not provide a robust query builder for users to intuitively query documents (other ECM solutions offer this OOB)
• SharePoint formats Search results like a search engine, not like a document management product.
• SharePoint treats PDF documents and scanned images as a 2nd class citizen.
Crawled Properties
• Crawled properties are metadata (such as author, title, or subject) that are extracted from SharePoint columns during crawls.
• However, this is the internal representation of the metadata. To enable users to search on this metadata, we need to use managed properties that are mapped to the crawled properties.
Crawled Properties
•A new crawled property is created for each new custom column, after…• The column is added to at least one list or
library
• The column is populated with a value in at least one item
• A Full Crawl is performed
Crawled Properties - Categories• All Crawled properties are grouped into various categories.
• For Transactional Content Management solutions, we generally care about the “SharePoint” Category, which contains crawled properties that are tied to list columns in SharePoint.
• Accessible from Search Service Application: Metadata Properties>Categories
Crawled Properties• The Naming convention is fully controlled by SharePoint, using this convention: ows_[internal name of column]
•However, spaces or other symbols (.-!@#$%^, etc.) within the internal column name are escaped, such as:Column Internal Name Crawled Property Name
InvoiceNumber ows_InvoiceNumber
Invoice Number ows_Invoice_x0020_Number
Invoice.Number ows_Invoice_x002e_Number
Invoice-Number ows_Invoice_x002d_Number
Crawled Properties
• In SP2010, most SharePoint columns gets one crawled property• Managed Metadata Columns get a 2nd crawled property, with
a prefix of “ows_taxid”
• This extra crawled property is used to store the internal GUID value that is associated with the managed metadata term. For example:
Column Name: CostCenter
Normal Crawled Property:
ows_CostCenter
MM Id Crawled Property:
ows_taxid_CostCenter
Managed Properties…
•…Allow you to enable standardization in the terms used for searching SharePoint.
•…Represent the end-user’s vision of the SP taxonomy (at least with regards to Search)•So the name of your managed properties should normally be something intuitive to your end-users
Managed Properties
• One managed property may be mapped to one or more crawled properties.• Useful in low governance situations where multiple site
owners or site collection admins have duplicated site columns using different names (e.g. InvoiceNumber vs ‘Invoice Number’)
• One crawled property may be mapped to one or more managed properties• Useful if different applications create their own
managed properties, and need to reference the same crawled property.
Using Managed PropertiesWITHOUT MANAGED PROPERTIES
WITH MANAGED PROPERTIES
Returns 16 items, only 6 of which are related to what I wanted.
Included other documents that happen to contain the StudentId value either as text in the document or in some other field (like an Invoice Number, or something else)
Returns only the 6 correct items
Advanced Search Web Part
Provides an OOB search interface that allows users to select a Managed Property from a drop down list, rather than having to type out the managed property name (e.g. “StudentID:” or “StudentID=“)
Configuring Advanced Search Web Part
Use your favorite XML editor (VS 2012)
Using Advanced Search Web Part
Creating Managed Properties
Unlike Crawled Properties (which are always auto-generated by SharePoint…
Managed properties can be created in one of three ways…
Creating Managed Properties (Option 1)
• SP2010: “Metadata Properties” link
• SP2013: “Search Schema” link
SP 2010 SP 2013
Managed Properties can be created manually by a SharePoint Administrator from the Search Service Application configuration.
Creating Managed Property (SP2010)• Click “New Managed Property” link
from Metadata Property Mappings• Property Name can contain most characters,
except for spaces (but please don’t use special characters)
• Based on the selected type, this managed property can only be mapped to crawled properties with the same type.
• Add Mapping – Select 1 or more crawled properties to map to this managed property.• If multiple are selected decide whether to include all
values or just the first one found
• Scopes – preset filter on content – like a global where clause
• Reduce storage requirements (“hash”) – option actually works in reverse to what is stated.
Creating Managed Property (SP2013)• Property Name - Same as SP2010
• Add Mapping - same as in SP2010
• Reduce storage requirements (“hash”) option - No longer exists in SP2013
• Many additional settings• Searchable – Enables querying against the content of
the managed property
• Queryable – Enables querying against the specific managed property
• Retrievable – Enable this setting for managed properties that are relevant to present in search results.
• Refinable – Can be used as a search refiner
• Sortable –
• Token Normalization
• Complete Matching
Creating Managed Properties (Option 2)
• For example, Hershey’s XenDocs ECM for SharePoint will validate that a managed property is properly configured or automatically create a managed property for each column when our web part is configured.
Automatically generated by custom code or a 3rd party application
Creating Managed Properties (Option 3)
Let SharePoint Auto-Generate new managed properties when it crawls
Auto-Generating Managed Properties
•In SharePoint 2010…• This feature is off by default, but it can be enabled in your Search Service Application
From the Categories list, hover over the SharePoint category, click the drop down arrow and then select the Edit Category option.
Select the option to “automatically generate a new managed property for each crawled property…”
Auto-Generating Managed Properties
•In SharePoint 2013…• All site columns that contain data will have a managed
property auto-generated upon a full crawl
• This does not happen for list columns
• This feature cannot be turned off and is not configurable (as far as I can tell)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj613136.aspx
Comparison of Naming conventions for Crawled and Auto-Generated Managed Properties
Column
SharePoint 2010 SharePoint 2013
Name Crawled Property
Managed Property
Crawled Properties
Managed Property
FooBar 0ws_FooBar owsFooBar1 0ws_FooBarows_q_TEXT_FooBar
Not mappedFooBarOWSTEXT
Foo Bar
ows_Foo_x0020_Bar
owsFoox0020Bar
ows_Foo_x0020_Bar
FooBarOWSTEXT
Foo_Bar
0ws_Foo_Bar owsFooBar 0ws_Foo_Barows_q_TEXT_Foo_Bar
Not mappedFooBarOWSTEXT
Foo-Bar
ows_Foo_x002d_Bar
owsFoox002dBar
ows_Foo-Barows_q_TEXT_Foo-Bar
Not mappedFoo-BarOWSTEXT
Foo.Bar
ows_Foo_x002e_Bar
owsFoox002eBar
ows_Foo.Barows_q_TEXT_Foo.Bar
Not mappedFoo.BarOWSTEXT
The auto-generated names for managed properties are not “end-user friendly” !
Enhancing the User Experience…
Hershey’s XenDocs ECM for SharePointA vast improvement compared to the native Advanced Search Web Part
Viewing PDF files and scanned images• MS Office Documents are first 1st class citizens in
SharePoint• When office files are opened in Office 2007, 2010 or 2013, users
can perform many SharePoint functions on those documents:• Edit document content• Check in/out/discard• See version history• Edit metadata
• Preview Thumbnails in SP 2013
• Most other file types, especially PDF files and scanned images are 2nd class citizens• Read only view of document
Viewing Scanned Images and/or PDF files
Files typically open in native apps such as Windows Photo Gallery or Adobe Reader• Users cannot edit
metadata
• If user rotates, re-orders or deletes a page, the changes cannot be saved to SP
• User cannot annotate pages (e.g. sticky notes, redactions, etc.)
Vizit Essential™ - Integrated viewing of scanned images and/or PDF documents in SharePoint
A powerful, low cost PDF and imaging viewer for SharePoint
Vizit Essential - Integrated viewing of scanned images and/or PDF documents in SharePoint
Visually search documents with thumbnails and quick previews
Vizit Essential - Integrated viewing of scanned images and/or PDF documents in SharePoint
Search for text within a PDF file (just like Adobe Reader/Acrobat)
Vizit Essential - Integrated viewing of scanned images and/or PDF documents in SharePoint
Edit SharePoint metadata within the viewer for PDF documents and scanned images
Vizit Pro™ - Integrated viewing of scanned images and/or PDF documents in SharePoint
Adds robust image editing features – annotations, re-order, rotate or delete pages, image cleanup
Conclusion• To leverage SharePoint’s native features for
transactional document management… • Extensive upfront planning
• Complex configuration (many more steps to configure SP compared to most dedicated document management products)
• To make the overall user experience in SharePoint comparable with dedicated Document Management products, plan on:• Lots of custom code ... OR …
• 3rd party solutions
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