Table of contents

• Components of PNP Search
• Before you start
• Search schema
• Turning crawled into managed properties
• How to map properties
• Examples for search queries
• Dynamically filter based on a calculated date
• Filter based on a multi value column
• Only allow search box terms to search specific columns
• Search for news within the current hub site and its associated hub sites
• Examples to customize displayed data or their function
• If - statements
• Link to a filtered view instead of the item itself
• Format date time values

Before you start

Search schema

The search schema is an inventory of all columns and metadata you have in a site collection in SharePoint. It will also contains SharePoint Online user attributes like department or office. The search schema has two categories of metadata:

1. Crawled properties are all metadata and site columns, that you create. The crawling happens frequently and should show your columns quickly after filling an example item or document with that metadata.
2. Managed properties are mapped to certain crawled properties to expose them to the search. With a mapped property the column becomes available as searchable, filterable and sortable. All default SharePoint columns, e.g. Title, Modified, Modified By, are already managed and can be used out-of-the-box.

Turning crawled into managed properties

This step is important since only managed properties are exposed to the search in a way where you can search or filter them. To turn crawled properties into managed properties you have to map them to the so called “Refinables”. Depending on the data type you should choose the refinable property. There are plenty available, that you can map at a tenant or site collection level.

See the full list here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/manage-search-schema#default-unused-managed-properties

Examples for search queries

Dynamically filter based on a calculated date

RefinableDate01 < {today+180}

Filter based on a multi value column

Now this is quite amazing and I only found that out recently. Lets say you have a multi-value choice column and you want to show all results based on those values. Usually you would combine these values with the operator “OR”. While that's fine for one or two fixed values, providing the query for dynamic values is not easy.

Example: You have a site page (page A) with a lookup multi-value for other side pages. You do that, because you want to provide a high level relation between site pages. You have mapped the lookup column to a refinable, which will store the site pages id. The site page you created has two other site pages in its lookup column.

On the initial page (page A), you setup a PNP search result displaying all site pages of its lookup column. For this, you can use this syntax:

{|RefinableString01:{Page.myLookupColumn.lookupid}}

Only allow search box terms to search specific columns

Usually, a search box will always look through all properties and contents of files. You can restrict the search box input by specifying one or more columns.

(RefinableString197: {inputQueryText}* OR Title: {inputQueryText}*)

Search for news within the current hub site and its associated hub sites

//News within the hub and its associated sites
PromotedState:2
DepartmentID:{{Site.id._guid}}
//All elements within the current Site, without the site object itself
path:{Site}
-contentclass="STS_Site"

Examples to customize displayed data or their function

Using handlebar expressions you can customize the format of the data in the results, like formatting dates or links.

If - statements

You can use if expressions to show content based on conditions.

//Show a default value if the column empty
{{#if SPTranslationLanguage}}
{{SPTranslationLanguage}}
{{else}}
en-us
{{/if}}

//Show a value if the path, in this case, contains a specific word
{{#if (contains item.Path "Archive")}}
Archive
{{else}}
Active
{{/if}}

Link to a filtered view instead of the item itself

Often you reach a situation where users click on links and instead of being redirected into a word document, the users wants to see the document within the library. You can manipulate the link so the users sees a filtered library or list.

//based on its list item id
<a href="{{ParentLink}}?FilterField1=ID&FilterValue1={{ListItemID}}&FilterType1=Counter&useFiltersInViewXml=1" target="_blank" style="color: {{@root.theme.semanticColors.link}}">
	Edit in list
</a>

//based on a refinablestring that is connected with "empWorkerName"
<a href="{{ParentLink}}?FilterField1=empWorkerName&amp;FilterValue1={{RefinableString198}}&amp;FilterType1=Text" target="_blank" style="color: {{@root.theme.semanticColors.link}}">
    {{RefinableString198}}
</a>

Format date time values

Case-sensitive, use value separators as needed.

{{getDate RefinableDate01 "DD.MM.yyyy"}}
{{getDate RefinableDate01 "DD.MM.yyyy HH:mm"}}