Microsoft Sharepoint is Microsoft’s central content management system. Its main function is to allow groups to organize a centralized password-protected space that is safe to store, download, edit and finally upload documents for further sharing. Being a browser-based collaboration platform allows you to help improve the overall effectiveness and efficiency of an organization by helping them streamline their management of and access to stored data. By understanding Microsoft Sharepoint search software, one will be better equipped to use its extensive features.
From a technical perspective, there are 3 main categories of services provided, they are Windows Sharepoint or WSS services, Microsoft Office Sharepoint server and lastly Microsoft Search Server. Each of these components has its own individual regions of functionality and can be built on top of each other.
The company itself has provided descriptions of its many functions. However, this article will focus primarily on the server software, the enterprise search engine that enables advanced search and indexing capabilities that is elegantly integrated into a MOSS web-based interface.
The recent additional feature provided by Microsoft is Sharepoint Server 2010 search. This is a major upgrade to the existing program as it has, for example, a new people search feature recommended for experience identification and collaboration purposes. It also has search capabilities out of the box, especially for enterprise deployments.
Another notable system enhancement is the completely new FAST search offering; the first and new product based solely on the cutting edge technology of FAST and the company was acquired by Microsoft in April 2008. One feature of this is that it possesses an efficient content processing pipeline with advanced content processing and linguistic features to create a wide spectrum of new applications.
Another notable included feature is metadata extractors that can automatically extract metadata to design a clear and useful structure from random or unstructured data. To help you with this effort, FAST uses simple administrative tools as well as the concept of “managed properties” found earlier in the program to support adding custom metadata extractors extremely quickly.
In addition to the above, the software also has the ability to generate custom relevance modes to differentiate differences in content sources, user contexts, and application needs. For example, different users can now have different search contexts that will provide them with experiences optimized to suit their specific business requirements. In a typical business environment, this would mean that a sales rep wouldn’t be forced to see exactly the same results as a product designer for a particular query, even if the two search for identical sources.
Searches in general never exist in a vacuum. The ability to integrate with an assimilate into your business productivity features is a critical component to actually acting on a search result. From this perspective, understanding Microsoft Sharepoint search software would certainly be beneficial to anyone working in a large or multinational corporation to assist them in their day-to-day operations.