Managing the Search Service


Although SPS provides several ways to locate information, such as area and personal links, there is no substitute for a healthy search engine. The quality of searches performed within the portal is dependent upon properly scheduling and building indexes of content on key sources. Early in the book, I specified the account to use when crawling data sources, but it is important to remember that the account used must have permission to access the data sources you want to include in the index.

To change the access account, you need to follow this procedure:

  1. Log in to SPSPortal as a local administrator.

  2. Select Start All Programs SharePoint Portal Server SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration.

  3. On the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration page, select Server Configuration Configure Server Farm Account Settings.

  4. On the "Configure server farm account settings" page, locate the Default Content Access Account section.

  5. Check the Specify Account box.

  6. Type the user name and password of an account that has permission to access the sources you wish to include in your index and search process.

Defining External Content Sources

In most organizations, searchable content will not be strictly limited to sites, documents, and lists contained within SPS. Instead, there are likely to be several external sources that contain documents that you will want to make accessible through searching. Along with site content already contained in the portal, SharePoint can index Microsoft Exchange servers, Lotus Notes databases, web sites, and file servers.

To add a content source, follow these steps:

  1. Log in to SPS as a member of the Administrator site group .

  2. From the portal home page, click the Site Settings link.

  3. On the Site Settings page, select Search Settings and Indexed Content Configure Search and Indexing.

  4. On the Configure Search and Indexing page, select General Content Settings and Indexing Status Add Content Source.

  5. On the Add Content Source page, select the type of content to crawl and click Next.

  6. Specify the particular parameters necessary to crawl the source.

  7. Click OK.

  8. Establish a full and incremental update schedule for the source.

Scheduling Content Crawls

Regardless of whether the content is a direct part of SPS or an external source, you will need to schedule content crawls to make the source available in search results. SPS's search service supports Full, Incremental, and Adaptive updates of the content indexes.

A Full update crawls the entire content source and updates the search index for every document. A Full update will add new information to the index, modify existing information, and delete obsolete information. A Full update is an intensive operation that should be scheduled for off-peak hours and performed only occasionally. Generally, a Full update is warranted under the following conditions:

  • Whenever the index update rules are changed

  • Whenever the server crashes

  • When the portal structure changes significantly

  • When the noise word file is changed

  • When an index is manually reset

An Incremental update, on the other hand, only indexes content that has changed since the last crawl. This makes an Incremental update much more efficient. You can schedule such updates daily during off-peak hours to ensure that the search results are always up to date.

An Adaptive update uses historical analysis to try and perform a more efficient update than even that achieved with an Incremental update. The analysis uses information from previous updates to determine which documents are likely to have changed. The update then focuses on this set of documents.

To create an update schedule, follow these steps:

  1. Log in to SPS as a member of the Administrator site group.

  2. From the portal home page, click the Site Settings link.

  3. On the Site Settings page, select Search Settings and Indexed Content Configure Search and Indexing.

  4. On the Configure Search and Indexing page, select General Content Settings and Indexing Status Manage Search Schedules.

  5. If the content source already has a schedule defined, you may select Edit from the drop-down menu associated with the item.

  6. If the content source does not have a schedule defined, click the New Search Schedule link.

Creating Keywords

Keywords are used by the search engine to show results more prominently when a search result includes such words. Administrators can create and manage key words by selecting Site Settings Search Settings and Indexed Content Manage Keywords. In this section, you can create keywords, identify synonyms, and associate them with a Best Bet URL. Figure 10-2 shows a sample results page with a Best Bet prominently displayed using a star icon.

click to expand
Figure 10-2: Displaying Best Bets

Enabling Online Presence

Wherever a user is referenced throughout SPS, you can provide presence information. Presence information is used to identify who is online and send instant messages to them. Presence information is available only when the client machine has Office 2003 installed along with either the Microsoft Messenger or the MSN Messenger. Figure 10-3 shows an example of presence information displayed in the portal.


Figure 10-3: Displaying presence information

To enable online presence, follow these steps:

  1. Log in to SPSPortal as a local administrator.

  2. Select Start All Programs SharePoint Portal Server SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration.

  3. On the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration page, select Portal Site and Virtual Server Configuration Configure Virtual Server Settings from the Virtual Server List Page.

  4. On the Virtual Server List page, select Default Web Site.

  5. On the Virtual Server Settings page, select Virtual Server Management Virtual Server General Settings.

  6. On the Virtual Server General Settings page, select Yes to "Enable person name Smart Tag and online status for members ."

  7. Click OK.

Managing Quotas and Locks

As an organization uses SPS, it will consume more and more resources. To ensure that the installation remains healthy, you need to specify limits ”called quotas ” surrounding the resources that any site can use. If usage gets out of hand, you may even need to lock the site so that no additional resources can be consumed.

Quotas are not enabled by default in SPS. To enable them, you must define a quota template that contains the restrictions you wish to impose. Quota values are maintained in the configuration database and are typically applied to site collections when they are first created. The quota template is used to apply a set of restrictions to a site collection all at once.

Follow these steps to create and apply a quota template:

  1. Log in to SPSPortal as a local administrator.

  2. Select Start All Programs SharePoint Portal Server SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration.

  3. On the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration page, select Portal Site and Virtual Server Configuration Configure Site Quotas and Locks from the Virtual Server List.

  4. On the Manage Quotas and Locks page, select Manage Quotas Manage Quota Templates.

  5. On the Manage Quota Templates page, select "Create a new quota template."

  6. Name the quota Test Template .

  7. Click OK.

  8. Return to the Manage Quotas and Locks page.

  9. Select Manage Quotas Manage Site Collection Quota and Locks.

  10. On the "Manage site collection quotas and locks" page, type the URL of a top-level site you have created.

  11. Click View Data.

  12. In the Current Quota Template list, select the Test Template.

  13. Click OK.




Microsoft SharePoint[c] Building Office 2003 Solutions
Microsoft SharePoint[c] Building Office 2003 Solutions
ISBN: 1590593383
EAN: N/A
Year: 2006
Pages: 92

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