Essential Facts About Microsoft Sharepoint Search Software

Microsoft Sharepoint is Microsoft’s central content management system. It’s main functions is to enable groups to organize a centralized, password-protected space that is safe for documents to be stored, downloaded, edited and finally uploaded for continued sharing. Being a browser-based collaboration platform allows for it to help improve the overall effectiveness and efficiency of an organization by assisting them in streamlining their management of and access to stored data. By understanding Microsoft Sharepoint search software one will be better equipped to utilize its extensive features.

From a technical perspective there are 3 main categories of services provided, they are the Windows Sharepoint Services or WSS, the Microsoft office Sharepoint Server and lastly the Microsoft Search Server. Each of these components have their own individual regions of functionality and can be built upon one another.

The company itself has provided descriptions for its many functions. However this article will be focusing mainly on the server software, the enterprise search engine that allows for advanced finding and indexing capabilities which is stylishly integrated into a MOSS Web-based interface.

The recent additional feature provided by Microsoft is Sharepoint Server 2010 search. This is an important upgrade to the existing program as it has, for instance a new People Finding feature recommended for the purposes of expertise identification as well as collaborations. It also possesses an out-of-the-box finding capabilities, especially for enterprise deployments.

Another prominent upgrade to the system is the entirely new offering of FAST search; the first and brand new product based solely of FAST’s high-end technology and the company was acquired by Microsoft back 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 broad spectrum of novel applications.

Another noteworthy feature included are the Meta-Data extractors which can automatically extract meta-data to design a clear and useful structure from otherwise random or unstructured data. To assist it with this endeavor, FAST uses simple administrative tools as well as the concept of “managed properties” found previously in the program to support the adding of custom meta-data extractors extremely quickly.

In addition to the above, the software also has the ability to generate custom relevancy modes to differentiate between differences in content sources, user contexts and application needs. For instance, different users may now possess different find contexts that will provide them with experiences optimized to suit their specific business requirements. In a typical enterprise setting, this would imply that a sales representative would not be required to see the exact same results as a product designer for a particular query, even if the two are looking for identical sources.

Searches in general, never exist in a vacuum. The ability to integrate with an assimilate into their business productivity functions is a critical component to actually acting on a search result. For this perspective, understanding Microsoft Sharepoint search software would undoubtedly be beneficial to anyone working in a large or multi-national corporation in assisting them in their everyday operations.