driving value with search
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TRANSCRIPT
Driving Value with Search: Working Smart, Not Hard
Michal PisarekSharePoint MVPFounder Dynamic Owl Consulting Inc
Driving Value with SearchWhy is search so difficult?
Common mistakes and finding value
Tips to improve your search
Who am I
SharePoint MVP
Based in Vancouver, Canada
Author of sharepointanalysthq.com
SharePoint Analyst:BusinessTechnical
Founder of Dynamic Owl Consulting
[email protected]@michalpisarekmichalpisarek
WHY IS SEARCH SO DIFFICULT?
Why simple does not mean easy
The Google Effect
Fooled people into thinking search requires no effort
Users have a very low tolerance for failure
Enterprise search is fundamentally different in context
The Google Effect Part 1
Search requires
little to no effort on the part of
users or administrators
The Google Effect Part 2
Users have little to no tolerance
for failure with search
The Google Effect Part 3
Consumer and enterprise search
are the same thing
COMMON MISTAKES AND FINDING VALUE
Custom Scopes
Search Refiners
Custom Results Pages
Advanced Search
Bets Bets and Keywords
Content Sources
Search Suggestions Expansion Sets Replacement
Sets
Custom Ranking
Algorithms
Search Syntax Training People Search
Lack of vision for search
“Improved Search Experienc
e”“Intuitive Search”
“Increased Findability”
“Google Like Search”
“Better Search”
“Encourage cross departmental
knowledge sharing by surfacing
related content”
“Provide access to the correct experts
through skills, expertise and qualifications”
“Encourage compliance by
surfacing authoritative,
approved content”
“Improving the search experience
by allowing employees to
directly influence the results”
You don’t have to index all
content to provide a
compelling search experience
Seeking ValueConcentrate on the
10 most common search
actions that provide the most
value
The cost of configuring search is far out weighed by
the value you receive
Measuring the value search provides
“Find the phone number and department of any
user by first or last name”
“Find the latest 10 documents that I have authored over the last
week”
“Find all policies and procedures that have
been approved”
“Ability to filter by news category, author or
department on Intranet news articles”
FANTASTICO INC SEARCH STRATEGYFANTASTICO INC SEARCH STRATEGYOUTCOMES
MEASURES
TARGET STORIES
SHAREPOINT SCOPE AND CONFIGURATION
OUTCOMES
MEASURES
TARGET STORIES
SHAREPOINT SCOPE
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The Golden Rule of Gathering Search Requirements
Never ask users the question “So what
search requirements do you have?”
OUTCOMES
MEASURES
TARGET STORIES
SHAREPOINT SCOPE
TECHNIQUES DELIVERABLE
Search Vision Statement
KPI Workshop
List of measures that make sense
Backlog of stories
Functional Spec and Solution
TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR SEARCH
Best Bets and Keywords
Inject your own search intelligence
Applicable to any organization
Easily Configurable
23
Typical Examples
AcronymsAny TLAs
Department Names:AccountingHuman ResourcesMarketing
Common Business TermsEngineering Organizations: Topics Banking: Task Based
General TermsCommon Actions: Printing, Mail, Car Hire, Travel, BankingLocations: Office locations, Project LocationsLeave: Leave forms, holiday forms, travel requestSharePoint Based: Intranet, Projects, TrainingIntranet Based: Events, News, Stories
asd
Best Bets Workshop
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Get diverse people in a room
Hand out cue cards with the Best Bet format
Write 10 each, then shuffle and swap
At the end review all Best Bets
Custom Scopes
Metadata or Content
Source Driven
Partition Content for improved
results
• Metadata• Content Type• Content Source• Content Class
PeopleSiteLinksContactsAnnouncementsDiscussionsTasks
Scopes
How does your organization think about information?
Content Based: Contracts, Policies, ProceduresTask Based: New Member Account, Termination, New Loan ApplicationStorage Based: C Drive, SharePoint Sites, CRMTime Based: Yearly Financial CyclesDepartment Based: Accounting
My Experience
Always have a Documents search scope implemented
Users are more comfortable with the word ‘filter’ than ‘scope’
Too many scopes can be confusing
Card Sorting
Lets people group related information together
Powerful way to see how users think about information in groups
Great to see how scopes should be structured
Two types:Open: Users create categoriesClosed: Pre-defined categories
Running a card sort
Create cue cards
Users sort into categories
Can be done online or in person
Custom Results Pages
Custom Results Pages
Images blatantly stolen from Corey Roth, Matthew McDermott and Todd Carter
Add Ratings
View Folder
Customize results for different content
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Custom Results Workshop
Select the content that you want to target (this is usually tied to scopes)
Sit users in a room with a facilitator
Get users to choose which pieces of metadata are important and how they should be displayed
START DATE
CUSTOMER
PROJECT NUMBER
YEAR
OFFICE/BRANCH
LAST MODIFIED
EXCERPT
TITLEFILE SIZE
FILE TYPE
EXECUTED BY
PROJECT ID
START DATE
CUSTOMER
YEAR
OFFICE/BRANCH PROJECT NUMBER
Invest in People Search
“People usually don't
want to know the answer, people usually
want to know who knows the answer”
Invest in people search
Finding the right person is usually more important than finding the right content
Determine what users are looking for
Leverage User Profiles
Expose in search
Search Reporting
SharePoint offers great search reporting capabilities to help you
How was your search web part
Great way to gather feedback about search
Simple way for end users to communicate their feedback
The information can be a goldmine
Conclusion
Plan and implement search like anything else on SharePoint
Seek true value and then drive your efforts towards it
It is possible to make a huge difference to your organization
Q/A & Contact Details
Michal PisarekSharePoint MVP
www.sharepointanalysthq.com [email protected]
michalpisarek@michalpisarek