Configure Crawl Sources in sharepoint 2013

How to start a full crawl in Central Administration

Before you can start a full crawl in Central Administration, you have to specify which content source should be crawled. When you run a full crawl, all content in the content source is crawled even if that content has already been added to the search index.

For this scenario, we'll crawl the Local SharePoint sites content source.

1. Go to Central Administration --> Manage service applications --> Search Service Application -- > Content Sources.
2. On the Manage Content Sources page, hover over the Local SharePoint sites content source, and select Start Full Crawl from the menu.

The status of the crawl is shown in the Status column.

3. Refresh this page until you see that the value in the Status column is Idle.
   This means that the crawl has finished.

4. Optionally, you can verify that your items have been added to the search index by clicking Crawl Log.
   In our scenario, we now have 870 items in the search index, which is approximately the same amount of products we have in the Products list.

How to enable continuous crawls in Central Administration

You can only start a full crawl manually. Nobody wants the hassle of having to manually start a crawl every time a change is made to their catalog content, as this is neither an efficient nor practical way to work. So, to avoid this overhead, you can simply enable a continuous crawl of your content source that contains the catalog.

Continuous crawls start automatically at set intervals. Any changes that have been made to the catalog since the previous crawl, are picked up by the crawler and added to the search index.

To enable continuous crawls:

1. Go to Central Administration --> Manage service applications --> Search Service Application --> Content Sources.
2. On the Manage Content Sources page, click Your content source for which you want to enable continuous crawl, in our scenario case, this is Local SharePoint sites.
3. Select the option Enable Continuous Crawls.

How to set continuous crawl interval

The default interval for continuous crawls is 15 minutes. You can set shorter intervals by using PowerShell. The code snippet below sets the continuous crawl interval to 1 minute.

$ssa = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication
$ssa.SetProperty("ContinuousCrawlInterval", 1)

So, by enabling continuous crawls, you can avoid a lot of frustration from content managers as they no longer have to wait for Search service application administrators to start a crawl for them. However, for some catalog changes, for example, enabling managed properties as refiners, continuous crawls are not sufficient, and you will need to do a full reindexing of the catalog content. But not to worry. Content managers have no reason for concern, because there is a way for them to initiate a full reindexing of the catalog.

How to initiate a reindexing of the catalog

To mark a catalog for reindexing, here's what to do:

1. On your catalog (in our case the Products list in the Product Catalog Site Collection), click the LIST tab --> List Settings --> Advanced Settings.
2. On the Advanced Settings page, click Reindex List.

How to view crawl status and schedule for a catalog

You can view the crawl status and schedule for an individual catalog. To do this:

1. On your catalog (in our case the Products list in the Product Catalog Site Collection), click the LIST tab --> List Settings --> Catalog Settings.
2. On the Catalog Settings page, you can see when the catalog was last crawled, and what crawls are scheduled to run when.
   In our case, we can see that the catalog was last crawled on 3/4/2013 at 5:30:17 AM, and that continuous crawls are scheduled to run every 15 minutes.

So, all in all, content managers can be happy because their content is added to the search index at short intervals, and Search service application administrators can be happy because they are no longer bothered by content managers constantly asking them to start a crawl.

Upgrading the web.config file to SharePoint 2013

In SharePoint 2010 if we have any of the custom CAS policy defined and which is also referred in web.config file, then on upgrading the site from 2010 to SharePoint 2013, that entry will be missing in the web.config file.

<TrustLevel node is not available in web.config by default in SP2013, we need to update the code to insert the additional node before adding the custom CAS policy.

Powershelll scripts for Feature activation

Enable-SPFeature -identity "<Feature ID>" -URL http://sharepointsite

Configure Crawl Rules in Sharepoint 2013

To create or edit a crawl rule

      1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application.

      2. In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage Service Applications.

      3. On the Manage Service Applications page, in the list of service applications, click the Search service application.

      4. On the Search Administration page, in the Crawling section, click Crawl Rules. The Manage Crawl Rules page appears.

      5. To create a new crawl rule, click New Crawl Rule. To edit an existing crawl rule, in the list of crawl rules, point to the name of the crawl rule that you want to edit, click the arrow that appears, and then click Edit.

      6. On the Add Crawl Rule page, in the Path section:

•       In the Path box, type the path to which the crawl rule will apply. You can use standard wildcard characters in the path.

•        To use regular expressions instead of wildcard characters, select Use regular expression syntax for matching this rule.

7. In the Crawl Configuration section, select one of the following options:

     

      I.  Exclude all items in this path. Select this option if you want to exclude all items in the specified path from crawls. If you select this option, you can refine the exclusion by selecting the following:

Exclude complex URLs (URLs that contain question marks

Select this option if you want to exclude URLs that contain parameters that use the   question mark (?) notation.

      II. Include all items in this path. Select this option if you want all items in the path to be crawled. If you select this option, you can further refine the inclusion by selecting any combination of the following:

Follow links on the URL without crawling the URL itself. Select this option if you want to crawl links contained within the URL, but not the starting URL itself.

Crawl complex URLs (URLs that contain a question mark (?)). Select this option if you want to crawl URLs that contain parameters that use the question mark (?) notation.

Crawl SharePoint content as http pages. Normally, SharePoint sites are crawled by using a special protocol. Select this option if you want SharePoint sites to be crawled as HTTP pages instead. When the content is crawled by using the HTTP protocol, item permissions are not stored.

      8. In the Specify Authentication section, perform one of the following actions:

•     To use the default content access account, select Use the default content access account.
•     If you want to use a different account, select Specify a different content access account and then perform the following actions:

1.  In the Account box, type the user account name that can access the paths that are defined in this crawl rule.

2.  In the Password and Confirm Password boxes, type the password for this user account.

3.  To prevent basic authentication from being used, select the Do not allow Basic Authentication check box. The server attempts to use NTLM authentication. If NTLM authentication fails, the server attempts to use basic authentication unless the Do not allow Basic Authentication check box is selected.

•     To use a client certificate for authentication, select Specify client certificate, expand the Certificate menu, and then select a certificate.
•     To use form credentials for authentication, select Specify form credentials, type the form URL (the location of the page that accepts credentials information) in the Form URL box, and then click Enter Credentials. When the logon prompt from the remote server opens in a new window, type the form credentials with which you want to log on. You are prompted if the logon was successful. If the logon was successful, the credentials that are required for authentication are stored on the remote site.
•     To use cookies, select Use cookie for crawling, and then select either of the following options:

1.  Obtain cookie from a URL. Select this option to obtain a cookie from a website or server.

2.  Specify cookie for crawling. Select this option to import a cookie from your local file system or a file share. You can optionally specify error pages in the Error pages (semi-colon delimited) box.

•     To allow anonymous access, select Anonymous access.

              Click OK.

To test a crawl rule on a URL

1.      Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application.

2.      In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage Service Applications.

3.      On the Manage Service Applications page, in the list of service applications, click the Search service application.

4.      On the Search Administration page, in the Crawling section, click Crawl Rules.

5.      On the Manage Crawl Rules page, in the Type a URL and click test to find out if it matches a rule box, type the URL that you want to test.

6.      Click Test. The result of the test appears below the Type a URL and click test to find out if it matches a rule box.

To delete a crawl rule

1.      Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application.

2.      In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage Service Applications.

3.      On the Manage Service Applications page, in the list of service applications, click the Search service application.

4.      On the Search Administration page, in the Crawling section, click Crawl Rules.

5.      On the Manage Crawl Rules page, in the list of crawl rules, point to the name of the crawl rule that you want to delete, click the arrow that appears, and then click Delete.

6.      Click OK to confirm that you want to delete this crawl rule.

To reorder crawl rules

1.      Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application.

2.      In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage Service Applications.

3.      On the Manage Service Applications page, in the list of service applications, click the Search service application.

4.      On the Search Administration page, in the Crawling section, click Crawl Rules.

5.      On the Manage Crawl Rules page, in the list of crawl rules, in the Order column, specify the crawl rule position that you want the rule to occupy. Other values shift accordingly.

Configure Best Bets in SharePoint

SharePoint 2013 Preview transforms all your old Search Keywords or Best Bets  into Query Rules .

So let’s create a Query Rule that fires on the exact query ‘image library’ or ‘picture library’, then promotes a result for the Image Library to the top of the page.

First, we’ll go to the Query Rules management page. On your search center’s upper-right-hand corner, click the gear icon, then select Site Settings.

Next, on the Site Settings page, under the Search heading, click Query Rules. Note that you may see a Search Query Rules link under Site Collection Administration. This happens if you’re the Site Collection administrator and the search center is the site collection’s root site. Don’t click that one; those Query Rules affect every site in the site collection, and for now we want to focus only on the search center site.

Now that you’re on the Query Rules page, the first question to ask is “Where will the user be?” For example, do you want to manage Query Rules for your main Enterprise Search? Or for People Search? Or Video Search? Each search experience, out-of-the-box or custom, can have its own Query Rules.

This is what we call the query’s context. You configure Query Rules for a particular context by using that first row of dropdowns in the Query Rules management page.

To manage Query Rules for a specific search experience, use the first dropdown to pick the Result Source for that experience. We’ll go into Result Sources in another post — for now, think of them as a SharePoint 2010 Federated Location plus a Search Scope. Each search experience sends queries to a Result Source, and that source guarantees results meeting certain conditions. For instance, People Search sends queries to the Local People Results source, which only returns People results.

We want our new Query Rule to fire on the main Enterprise Search. That search experience sends queries to the Local SharePoint Results source (which includes everything SharePoint crawls except People). So choose Local SharePoint Results from the first dropdown.

Next, click Add Rule to start creating your new rule.

Having picked a context, we just need to give the rule a name, then specify its conditions and actions. In other words, say when this rule will fire, and what it will do when it does. This is very similar to creating a Search Keyword in SharePoint 2010:

    1.  Give the rule a name: Image Library.

     2.  In the Query Conditions section, leave the condition type on “Query Matches Keyword Exactly”. In the textbox, type the queries we want to match, separated by semicolons: image library; picture library.

     3. In the Actions section, since we want to promote a result to the top of the page, click Add Promoted Result. These are just like Best Bets in SharePoint 2010.

4. In the Add Promoted Result dialog, fill out the title, URL, and description.

5. Click Save in the dialog, then Save in the Add Query Rule page.

And that’s it…you’ve created a Query Rule! To try it out, go to your search center and search for ‘image library’ or ‘picture library’ (note that it can take a few seconds for the Query Rule to start working).

This Query Rule, while simple, demonstrates the high-level steps for creating all Query Rules.

1.      Pick the context (e.g., queries sent to the Local SharePoint Results source).
2.      Specify the conditions (e.g., fire if the query exactly matches ‘image library’ or ‘picture library’).
3.      Specify the actions (e.g., promote a result for the Image Library).

Upgrade Nintex workflows

VERIFY & CONFIGURE NINTEX WORKFLOW CONSTANTS

1. From the home page of the upgraded site, navigate to Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Manage Workflow constants (under Nintex workflow Management)
2. Ensure all the Nintex workflow constants (Site level and Site Collection level) are configured.

RE-PUBLISHING NINTEX WORFLOWS

1. Access the list/document library which contain the Nintex workflow.
2. From the ribbon, navigate to List -> Workflow settings -> Manage Workflows
3. Open each available Nintex workflow and re-publish

Upgrade Infopath Forms

RE-PUBLISH INFOPATH FORMS

1. Download the infopath form from the current job library, on the upgraded site.
2. Right click on the downloaded xsn file and open the form in design mode.
3. Click on File -> Publish -> Export Source ( to a local folder).
4. Access the local folder where the source is stored and locate the manifest.xsf.
5. Right click on the manifest.xsf file and open it in notepad.
6. In the notepad, find for the url of current site and replace it with the url of the upgraded site.
7. For example:-
8. Replace http://apdc.oneabbott.com/showcase/workflow/BTR2020 with http://team.oneabbott.com/showcase/workflow/BTR2020
9. Save the manifest.xsf.
10. Right click on the manifest.xsf file and open it in the design mode.
11. Execute the below steps for each data source added to the infopath (from the Manage Data source section).
• Click on Manage data source link form the infopath.
• Click on the first data source and click Modify.
• Continue to click “Next” until the dialog display the parameters to be passed to the web service calls.
• Verify if the url of the current site is passed as one of the parameters. If so, then replace the url with the url of the upgraded site.
12. Save the changes to the data source and also to the manifest.xsf.
13. Click File -> Publish -> Sharepoint library
14. From the publish dialog select the ‘Current Job” library and publish the form.