SharePoint Stuff

A collection of helpful tips and resources on maximising the value from a SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services Implementation.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Searching custom meta-data lookup fields

This is a follow up to a previous post "SharePoint Portal Server Meta Data Search Myth" (http://spsstuff.blogspot.com/2006/02/sharepoint-portal-server-meta-data.html). In that post I highlighted how the Advanced Search functionality didn't allow users to search against custom meta-data fields which were lookups. In such instances, users needed to enter the ID of the item rather than the value.

To work around the problem do the following
1. In SharePoint Portal
2. Click on Site Settings in the navigation bar on the top of the window.
3. In the Search Settings and Indexed Content section, click the Manage properties from crawled documents.
4. Click the plus sign to the left of urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office.
5. Now instead of using the field name (for example Country) scroll down till you get to ows_fieldname (eg ows_Country). Click the property from the list.
6. Check the Include this property in Advanced Search options checkbox.
7. Click the OK button.

And you're done.

Addendum: The ows_fieldname should also be used if you have PDF or non-Microsoft file formats in document libraries with custom meta data - even if they are not based on lookups.