Microsoft Enterprise Search Blog : Partners

Partner Post: One Stop Search from the Microsoft Office Research Task Pane

enterprisesearch — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 23:04:59 GMT

Since the release of Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft desktop applications such as MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook and Internet Explorer have contained an internal federated or meta-search capability known as the ‘Research Pane’. To see this in action in office 2003 (see link for instructions for Office 2007), select (i.e. highlight) a word or phrase within MS Word or MS Outlook, and on PC’s right click on the highlighted word, pull down to the “Lookup Up” option and click. Another way to do this is to hold down the ‘Alt’ button while left-clicking on a highlighted word (in Macs use a command-click). The Research Pane should then open up in the application window and execute a search on the highlighted section. Out of the box, MS Office ships with several research sources such as the Microsoft Encarta Dictionary, Microsoft Live Search, MSN Money and some third party offerings from Factiva and Thomson Gale among others. Here is a screenshot of content returned from three enterprise search engines as well as from some public biomedical websites.

The list of sources that can be searched from the Research Pane is expandable by adding connections to Research Pane service providers. Armed with a URL to a Research Pane “registration service”, a user can install the source into their MS applications using the “Research options…” link. This potentially gives users access to a large set of data sources to choose from. Once a source is installed, the user can select the source from a dropdown list (which causes the search to be executed) or can select a set of sources based on certain pre-defined categories.

Raritan Technologies specializes in Federated Search solutions and has created an array of search connectors to a number of web sites, web services, search engines and databases and directory services (to name a few) using our Search Integration Framework Toolkit (SIFT) and Federation Manager. We and our partner in this effort, New Idea Engineering, have also provided a number of ways to deploy these federated search connectors to web applications and within web services such as SOAP and Open Search. We have recently added to this list by providing a MS Research Pane service ‘front-end’ to our federated connectors. This enables connections to search engines such as Autonomy IDOL, K2 or Ultraseek, Dieselpoint, Endeca, Exalead, Fast, Lucene, Mark Logic (and others) as well as Sharepoint (out of the box) SQL databases, LDAP directories, SOAP and OpenSearch web services, Z39.50 sources, Internet web sites that have search boxes (a very large list that includes general web search engines and specialized sites such as news or research sites) and Content Management Systems such as Alfresco, Documentum and eRoom, and Archival Systems like Symantec Enterprise Vault to be ‘plugged-in’ to any MS Office application. The modular design of the Raritan Search Integration Framework enables other connectors to be added to this list and as this happens, these new sources will automatically be available to users of the Research Pane once configured as a service.

The ability to combine internal content sources from content management systems, enterprise search engines, databases and directory services with external content from subscription or public web sites and web services into MS Office applications provides a huge potential for search integration at the “tip of the sword” where thought and knowledge are combined to create new content.

For more information on the Raritan Technologies “Research Pane Integration” or to arrange for a trial connector please visit http://www.raritantechnologies.com/ResearchPane.shtml.

Barry Freindlich
President Raritan
Technologies, Inc.

Partner Post: Announcing conceptClassifier for SharePoint – Automatic Classification within Office

enterprisesearch — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:10:00 GMT

Enterprise customers are increasingly struggling with how to apply policy and governance at the desktop. End user adoption is cited as the single most critical barrier to success in ECM and Records Management initiatives. Using Concept Searching’s unique compound term processing conceptClassifier for SharePoint can now be used to automatically classify content from Microsoft Office Applications, upload the documents directly to SharePoint, store the metadata in SharePoint properties and write back the classifications to the custom properties of the document for use within knowledge and workflow applications or enterprise applications such as ECM, Document Management, Records Management, or eDiscovery.

The classification can take place automatically without end user intervention. Optionally, Subject Matter Experts can be granted the authority to manually adjust the classification based on the taxonomy. A ribbon bar has been added to the familiar Office interface enabling automatic classification of content. When the end user classifies a document the system will retrieve existing concepts as an aid to the classification process as shown below. Subject Matter Experts also have the ability to add or delete classes in the taxonomy.

Documents are uploaded to SharePoint and the classification metadata is stored in the properties fields. The classification status automatically reflects the manual classification so as to not overwrite the classification classes the Subject Matter Expert entered. The systems administrator features currently enabled include the ability to edit the classifications, classify the document, a batch of documents or the full library. This metadata can now be used by Microsoft Enterprise Search to improve identification of relevant documents when searching.

For more information visit www.conceptsearching.com or click here to view a webcast demo of the integrated technology.

Martin Garland
President Concept Searching, Inc

Announcing: conceptClassifier for SharePoint

enterprisesearch — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:41:07 GMT

conceptClassifier for SharePoint adds automatic document classification and taxonomy management to Microsoft SharePoint and works without the need to build another search index. It is installed as a set of Features that, when activated, cause new columns to be displayed in the document library listings and new menu options appear that allow authorised users to edit the automatically generated metadata, if required.

Adding Taxonomy navigation to SharePoint

Classification results are saved directly into SharePoint Properties where Microsoft Enterprise Search can utilise the metadata for enhanced searching, such as faceted search or results filtering.

The accuracy of the automatic classification is driven by the underlying technology which is based on compound term processing. This means that the classification engine performs its matching using multi-word concepts rather than simply looking for selected keywords or phrases. Taxonomy creation and maintenance is a simple process and is conducted using natural language rules, making it much simpler and quicker than alternative approaches.

More information about conceptClassifier for SharePoint can be found here:

http://www.conceptSearching.com

and a SharePoint demonstration can be seen here:

http://moss.conceptSearching.com

John Challis
CTO
Concept Searching Limited

Partner Spotlight: Enterprise Search and Visual Composite Applications

enterprisesearch — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 05:43:21 GMT

At GEOINT 2007 in San Antonio, Texas, Microsoft Gold Partner IDV Solutions unveiled a first-of-its-kind integration of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, Enterprise Search, and Virtual Earth. IDV’s Visual Fusion Suite of software integrates with MOSS, Enterprise Search, and Virtual Earth allowing users to visualize the results of keyword searches. For example, as shown in the accompanying screenshots, a search for "port" in the visual composite application interface returns SharePoint feed results, geo-referenced through Visual Fusion, which can be viewed in the context of space...

and time...

Altogether, the visual composite application brings together dozens of information sets from the internet cloud (Virtual Earth imagery, GeoRSS, WMS, SHP files) and from within the enterprise (SQL Server, SharePoint, etc.) into an integrated, interactive user interface.

To accomplish the enterprise search integration, Visual Fusion is passing scope and keyword parameters to a select statement which queries a pre-established index. The index was previously created by crawling the SharePoint default data source. The keyword is the search term entered by the user in the Search web part, and the result of the search is a data table with defined properties. Since the results are to be displayed in the context of a map, latitude and longitude are two of the properties expected in the data.

IDV Solutions empowers the enterprise with its compelling and enabling visual composite application software. Coupled with the SharePoint collaboration platform, Visual Fusion facilitates straight forward site creation, management, and usage, leading to faster, enlightened decision making within any organization.