Enterprise Search with Microsoft Search – A Beginner’s Guide

Microsoft Search as a Foundation for an Enterprise Search

Microsoft Search helps users to find the answers and insights they need for the tasks at hand. It also offers means to implement modern intranets. As a product it therefore covers all search experiences in Microsoft 365, as well as all search engines which run in the background. Moreover, it enables indexing third-party content sources through the Graph Connectors. Thus, Microsoft Search offers everything needed to implement the right enterprise search.

Which Sources Are Indexed Automatically by Microsoft Search?

There are content sources, which are automatically indexed and accessible by Microsoft Search. Right away, you can find all documents from SharePoint Online, Teams, People, OneDrive, Outlook and Yammer. Furthermore, add-on functionalities such as bookmarks, floor plans and Q&As are available. Other Microsoft products come with their own search engine and sometimes offer a federation to Microsoft Search.

Which Components Need to Be Licensed to Index Third-Party Content Sources?

It is quite easy to integrate third-party sources, such as Atlassian Confluence, ServiceNow or OpenText Content Server, and to add even more value Microsoft Search as a fully featured enterprise search. To get started, you need to have a quota for the Graph Connectors.

A quota becomes available through E5 licenses, or you can purchase an “Extra Graph Connector Capacity”. Right now, each E5 seat allows for indexing 500 documents. On the other you can purchase “Extra Graph Connector Capacity” which enables indexing one million documents per purchased package.

As part of such a quota, you are allowed to use all Microsoft Graph Connectors provided by Microsoft. Right away, this enables indexing file shares, ServiceNow and some more sources. Raytion offers even more connectors and tailored solutions for Microsoft Search, which can be licensed individually, if needed.

What Is Needed to Set Up a Connector?

You need to set up and configure the following components if you want to integrate new content sources to Microsoft Search:

1. Create a so-called connection within Microsoft Search. The connection offers the search index for this content source, as well the principal store for custom security trimming.
2. Register an app to enable access to Microsoft Search for the connector.
3. Configure (and potentially deploy) the connector which indexes the content source.

Search Experience and User Journeys

Having indexed the data of the content source is the first step towards a great enterprise search. You can configure Microsoft Search to display search results in an appealing way as part of the company-wide searches in SharePoint, Microsoft365.com and Bing for Business. This step is easily done as part of the general connector setup through adaptive cards, and our Raytion Connectors already provide everything needed for this experience.

Many organizations, however, have particular needs for their enterprise search. As a great search experience that helps users to solve their current tasks faster, it is worth to invest into a tailored enterprise search experience. Here you can consider using a direct intranet or Teams integration via Search-as-you-Type and, of course, consider using a standalone search center, such as the Raytion Search Center for Microsoft Search or the open source framework PnP Modern Search.

Who Is Involved in the Configuration Process?

The involved people are the content source owners or administrators, who are active during the configuration of a connector. Other involved people can be the search and Azure administrators, who support you with app registrations, the setup of the search connection and the search experience.

The Outcome

Microsoft Search with Graph Connectors is a solid and state-of-the-art foundation for a great enterprise search. With Microsoft’s and our Raytion Graph Connectors you can reliably integrate third-party sources into Microsoft Search. Using the out-of-the-box experiences in SharePoint Online, Teams, Bing or Microsoft365.com, everyone can find the knowledge and documents needed. And if these OOTB experiences are not enough, you can build a tailored search experience based on PnP Modern Search or kick-start your experience with our Raytion Search Center for Microsoft Search.

If you are interested in more information on how to build an enterprise search based on Microsoft Search, please reach out to our experts.