Search SharePoint Lists

Advanced Search Feature for SharePoint 2010

“How do I search my SharePoint list using an 'Advanced Search' form?”

– asked by a SharePoint end-user on a message board

If you have been using SharePoint for a while, you probably have realized by now that it is not easy to search SharePoint lists using “column data” or metadata. Just visit some of the popular Internet message boards related to SharePoint and you’ll find questions such as “How do I search my SharePoint custom list using SharePoint columns?” SharePoint has simplified the search experience for the end-user by adopting the “one textbox to search them all” approach. Sometimes this simplified approach does not meet your needs. SharePoint Search Server and FAST Search are strong when it comes to “free-text search”. However, SharePoint Search is not easy when performing “structured-search” (or advanced search).

If you have SharePoint consultants, developers, and super engineers, it’s doable to configure SharePoint to search metadata—to a point. You will still find certain search or query scenarios that just are not adaptable by simply using SharePoint Search Server or FAST Search. Ask yourself if you can easily perform the following queries using SharePoint Search Server (or FAST Search) and without developing any customization. Query SharePoint with the following sample-scenarios:

SharePoint date-range search: number of tickets opened in the first quarter (1/1/2011 to 3/31/2011 for example)
Another date-range search: Issues resolved in the month of July 2011 (7/1/2011 to 7/31/2011 for example)
Female customers from the state of California
Numeric-range search: Employees whose age is in between 41 and 50 years old
Products which netted at least $100,000 in sales for the year 2010
Documents authored by Sales Team that contains the subject “marketing”.
Employees who have not provided emergency contact info (emergency contact information fields are blank)
Company PR news or blog posts released to the public last week

Yes, you can create SharePoint list views that use filters corresponding to the examples above. But imagine if you had a ticketing system implemented using a SharePoint custom list, would you create a view for each quarter, month, and so forth? That’s a lot of views created for a single list over its lifetime! You’d be better off complementing SharePoint list view functionality with the Metadata Search Web part.

Search SharePoint Lists

Find items in SharePoint using advanced search or structured search with the Metadata Search Web Part. This nifty Web part has the following capabilities:

Works with SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010
Search any SharePoint 2010 custom list or library and scope your search specifically to a single list or library
Search all types of SharePoint columns
Search even External Data columns
Real-time search—don't wait for the SharePoint Indexing jobs to crawl your custom list or library. Find your items at the moment you need it!
Click an item in the search result and this will open up the clicked-item in a popup window while keeping the search results table intact
Bookmarked page results so you can easily jump to page 10 of the search results without having to click “next” 9 times!
Blends-in perfectly with your site branding and styling. See examples
Render a Printer-friendly page of the search results for easier readability. Click here to learn more about print functionality.
Export search results to a Microsoft Word document where you can apply custom formatting and add content. Click here to learn more about export functionality.
Designed with server performance in mind. This Web part will not overload your Web front end servers like some SharePoint 3rd-party products out there. Searches even work with large lists (if the SharePoint site is allowed higher-than-normal List View Threshold settings by the administrators).
Adheres to SharePoint Security Model. Users will not be able to access lists, libraries, documents or list-items if they don’t have the permissions to do so when using the Metadata Search Web Part.
Fully AJAX-enabled, meaning you can do the following without having to reload the entire SharePoint page:
- Search execution
- Sorting on a column
- Customizing the page-size (number of items displayed)
- Jumping to a certain page (of data or list-items)

Easy to Use!

The Metadata Search Web Part is easy for the administrators. But what’s even better is that it’s easy for the end-users:

Context-sensitive operators – comparison-operators adapt to the data-type of the columns to make it easier for end-users to apply search logic.
Context-sensitive search fields – search fields adapt to the data-type of the columns to make it easier for end-users to input search terms. Only numbers are allowed on numeric fields. Only dates are allowed on date columns. Dropdown lists for choice columns.
Knowledge of Boolean Operators not required! Users will be able to search SharePoint lists without having to deliberate the difference between “and” operator and “or” operator.
“Advanced” doesn’t have to be complicated. Just because you want advanced search capabilities does not mean you want complicated or convoluted experience when searching SharePoint!
Read more how easy it is to use this Web part