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Microsoft Delve blogs to be retired; Existing Delve blogs to be deleted in 2020

Thanks to a tweet by Tim Milan of Omaha, I heard today that Microsoft Delve blogs are to be deleted in a few months.

Milan’s news came from Office 365 Premier Support in response to a ticket he’d submitted. The email is as follows:

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Delve was first announced alongside the Office Graph in 2014 at SharePoint Conference. Even though it’s only been out for a little over five years, the retirement of Delve in general has been a topic of speculation for nearly two years now (and perhaps longer for others). Some have wondered whether to invest time learning and promoting the app anymore, and perhaps this news will help guide those decisions.

Important dates:

The following points are taken from the email body seen above.

  • Beginning December 18th, 2019, tenants can no longer create new Delve blogs.
  • Beginning January 18th, 2020, you can no longer create new posts in existing blogs
  • Beginning April 17th, 2020, existing Delve blogs will be deleted and removed from Delve profiles.

What now?

If you read this post and asked yourself, “What’s a Delve blog?” don’t worry about it. It was a convenient feature that allowed your average user to create and maintain a blog they could share in the organization.

If you read this post and realized you have hundreds of user and group blogs out there to manage and just a few months to figure it out, you have some choices to consider.

The email shown earlier in this post suggests creating communication sites and adding News, Yammer, and Stream web parts for engagement but this isn’t a good plan for all blogs as not all users can create sites for themselves. Even those that can create sites may find site creation and management a bit too complex or too large of a scope compared to running a simple blog.

You could consider creating WordPress or Blogger sites and migrating your posts there. Unfortunately, there is no RSS feed for Delve blogs to export. You’d be manually copying and pasting (or recreating) posts.

You might consider disabling Delve if you’d like to prevent users from beginning something that’ll be removed soon. You can do this through the SharePoint admin center for all users (see directions here). Keep in mind this disables more than just blog creation – read the description before proceeding.

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No matter what you choose, there’s no easy way forward. I would suggest getting your users involved in saving (print to PDF or copy/paste) posts of importance so that they can be posted as documents elsewhere, or recreated at a later time in another space.

Ready, set, change management!

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SharePoint search results showing wrong title

I recently ran into the issue of a document appearing in search results that didn’t use the name field OR the title field. I was perplexed by this until checking the search schema for the “Title” field. In an attempt to be helpful, there’s a property called MetadataExtractorTitle that was given higher preference than the actual title field. To fix this, I simply had to bump it down the list a bit.

Scenario

The document in question is a SharePoint Governance meeting agenda named SP Governance – 2017-11-17.

It appeared correctly in its library, which is to be expected:

And a look at its properties revealed there was no Title value, meaning it would default to the document name.

However, when searching for “SP” I found the document listed as “Agenda.” This was used because the MetadataExtractorProperty found “Agenda” within the document as a potential title (as the first line of the document).

Solution

Note: You must be at least a site collection administrator.

Go to Site Settings at the top level of the site collection for the document library.

Choose “Search Schema” under Site Collection Administration (not just “Schema” under search – that’s only site level)

Search for title and edit the property

Move “MetadataExtractorTitle” down until it’s beneath ows_Title. Click OK when finished.

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Checking your work

After fixing the schema, go back to the document library and re-index it to check. (Library Settings –> Advanced Settings –> Reindex Document Library)

This will have the library re-crawled during the next incremental crawl (interval depends on administrator settings). Alternatively, you could trigger it immediately or run a full crawl.

Once the crawl has run, try your search again. Your items should now have a correct title when appearing in search results.

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Run Google Chrome as a different user to test

In an on-prem environment, it’s convenient to be able to run Chrome as a test user with general permissions instead of my admin permissions. This possibility makes it so I don’t need to remote to another machine or log out and in with another account just for a simple check.

Using Internet Explorer? Here’s how to do the same with that.

If you have a shortcut to Chrome on your desktop (not your task bar), skip ahead to step two.

1. Search “Chrome” from the start menu, right click and select “Open File Location”

2. Hold “Shift” on your keyboard and right-click the Internet Explorer icon. Select “run as different user”

3. Enter the credentials for the second user (your screen/prompt may look different) and click OK/Login. In some cases, you may be prompted to enter these more than once.

Chrome will now run as if the other user is logged in.

You can also use the “Check permissions” feature in SharePoint to see which groups a user belongs to for a site or resource, and which abilities/privileges they have.

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Run Internet Explorer (IE) as a different user to test

It’s often helpful in our on-prem environment to be able to run IE as a test user with general permissions instead of my admin permissions. This possibility makes it so I don’t need to remote to another machine or log out and in with another account just for a simple check.

Using Google Chrome? Here’s how to do the same with that.

If you have a shortcut to IE on your desktop (not your task bar), skip ahead to step two.

  1. Search “IE” from the start menu, right click and select “Open File Location”

2. Hold “Shift” on your keyboard and right-click the Internet Explorer icon. Select “run as different user”

3. Enter the credentials for the second user (your screen/prompt may look different) and click OK/Login. In some cases, you may be prompted to enter these more than once.

IE will now run as if the other user is logged in.

You can also use the “Check permissions” feature in SharePoint to see which groups a user belongs to for a site or resource, and which abilities/privileges they have.

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Check permissions for an individual or group in SharePoint

If you want to see which groups a user belongs to, or how an individual is granted (or restricted) access to a particular site or resource, use the “Check permissions” button in Site Settings –> Site Permissions (or any advanced permissions page).

SharePoint 2016 example of checking permissions
SharePoint Online example of checking permissions (see specific allowances)
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Remove specific people from people search results in SharePoint

Note: Screenshots and steps from a 2016 environment

There may be times when you have AD accounts showing up in search results that you can’t delete, but need to hide from results. The following sections will guide you through removing specific profiles from your people search results.

Steps:

  1. Create a mapped property for user profiles
  2. Use the new property at least once
    • Start a full crawl of people source
  3. Create a managed property mapped to your new user property
    • Start a full crawl of site source
  4. Edit the query on the people search results page
  5. (optional) If you have “People Results” as “Promoted Results” or “Ranked Result Blocks”

1. Create a mapped property for user profiles

From Central admin, click on “Manage service applications”

Select “user profile service application”

Click “Manage User Properties” under “People”

Select “New Property”

Set the new properties settings as follows:

  • Name and display name: RemoveFromPeopleSearch
  • Policy Setting: Optional
  • Default Privacy Setting: Everyone
  • Search settings, Alias: checked
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Click OK.

2. Use the new property at least once

For the rest to work, you’ll need to mark at least one user profile to not show up in search. I did this by adding a “1” to the property we just created for a user I wished to remove from results.

Back under “User profile service application” (Central admin –> Manage service applications –> “User profile service application”) click on “Manage user profiles.”

Search for and edit the profile of who you’d like to remove from search results.


Start a full crawl of your people content source.

3. Create a managed property mapped to your new user property

Once the crawl is complete, go back to Central Admin home and select “Manage service applications.”

Select “Search service application”

Select “Search schema” from the left under “Queries and Results”

Select “New managed property”

Name it RemoveFromPeopleSearch and check “Queryable” and “Retrievable”

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Scroll down and click “Add a mapping,” search for “remove” and add our new user property.

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Click OK

This time, start a full crawl of your SITE content source.

4. Edit the query on the people search results page

Once your crawl is finished (may take a while), you’ll want to go to your people search results page and “Edit page.”

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Edit the “Results” web part

In the menu that appears on the right, select “Change Query.”

If you’re not in advanced mode, switch to advanced mode. Then expand the “property filter” dropdown and select “show all managed properties.”

Try the dropdown again, and now you’ll see your new property listed. Select it and click “OK

Set properties as follows and click “Add property filter”

Click OK

Click “Apply” on the web part menu

Click “Save” and publish (if checked out)

5. (optional) If you have “People Results” as “Promoted Results” or “Ranked Result Blocks”

If you have people results outside your regular people search (such as a promoted result block in Local SharePoint Results) you’ll just need to be sure to also add the RemoveFromPeopleSearch<>1 string to the end of your query rule’s query.

Query rules can be accessed through central admin (manage service applications –> search service application –> query rules) or from Site Settings –> Query rules depending on where you initially setup your query rules/promoted results.

  • via site settings
  • via central admin

Edit the query rule in question, click “edit” next to the result block that’s relevant, then “Launch Query Builder” to be able to add the RemoveFromPeopleSearch<>1 string to your query.

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Manually start a full or incremental crawl of an on-prem content source in SharePoint

From central admin, click “Manage service applications” under “Application Management”

Select the “Search service application”

Select “Content sources” from the left under “Crawling”

Select the drop-down for the content source you’re crawling and choose either a full or incremental crawl.

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Solution: “Database Connector has throttled the response” error on external list in SharePoint

Applies to SharePoint 2016, can be adapted for O365

If you’re connecting to an external list of significant size, you may run into the following error:

Database Connector has throttled the response. The response from database contains more than ‘2000’ rows. The maximum number of rows that can be read through Database Connector is ‘2000’. The limit can be changed via the ‘Set-SPBusinessDataCatalogThrottleConfig’ cmdlet.

1. Log into your SharePoint server

2. Open your SharePoint 2016 Management Shell as administrator (right-click, run as administrator)

3. Connect to your site

Connect-Site -url https://sharepoint.contoso.com

4. Get ALL service application Proxy IDs (you’ll need this in a later step)

Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy

5. Note the ID of the “Business Data Con…” application

6. Set a new variable “$serviceapp” to that app using the ID you noted as its identity

$serviceapp = Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy -Identity a12b3cf4-d12j...

7. Run the following cmdlet to increase the throttle limit

Get-SPBusinessDataCatalogThrottleConfig -Scope Database -ThrottleType Items -ServiceApplicationProxy $serviceapp | Set-SPBusinessDataCatalogThrottleConfig -Maximum 1000000000 -Default 500000

Your external list will now load correctly!

More info:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/sharepoint-server/get-spbusinessdatacatalogthrottleconfig?view=sharepoint-ps

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How to promote/feature a search result based on user query in SharePoint

If someone searches in SharePoint for “Power BI,” chances are they aren’t looking for a document from 2016 that happens to mention the phrase “Power BI.”

Using out-of-the-box search reports you can come to understand what phrases are being searched (and abandoned) on your intranet, then improve search by promoting/suggesting results you think your users are actually seeking.

I’m going to use my “Power BI” example. If a user searches Power BI on my dev environment, they get these as the top three results. The first two are SharePoint link lists (like promoted links or otherwise) and the third is just a document about embedding Power BI reports. None take you

Let’s make it easier to get directly to our app.powerbi.com portal when searched on the intranet.

  1. Go to central admin –> Manage service applications


  2. Select “Search service application”


  3. Select Query Rules from the left nav


  4. Select “Local SharePoint Results” from the first dropdown


  5. Click “New Query Rule”


  6. Name the rule and enter semi-colon separated phrases you want to trigger our promoted result


  7. Click “Add promoted result”


  8. Complete the form, keeping in mind that the “Title” and “Description” are what will appear in results when searched. Click Save.


  9. Click Save again. Changes are immediate, and your promoted result will appear FIRST in results with a checkmark icon to indicate it’s promoted/suggested

  10. Test your search

Note: If you use SharePoint Online, your navigation to the query rules is a bit different but still starts in central admin. The rest of the steps are the same.

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Solution: “This web site has been configured to disallow page editing with SharePoint Designer.”

There are three possible causes I’m aware of that you should check if you receive this message:

  • Central admin settings not configured properly
  • Site collection settings not configured properly
  • You’re using a Project Web App (PWA) site template and can only fix this on SharePoint Server

I’ll cover the solutions for each in the same order:

Central admin

Go to central admin –> manage web applications

Select the web app on which you received the error and select “SharePoint Designer” from the general settings drop-down. Make sure the first box is checked and click “OK.”

Site collection settings

Go to site settings –> SharePoint Designer Settings (under Site Collection Administration)

Make sure “Enable SharePoint Designer” is checked and click OK

Project web app template issue

Log in to a SharePoint server and go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates\PWA\XML

Open the ONET XML file in a text editor like NotePad

Search for “webdesign” (Ctrl+F to open search) and delete the following property:

DisableWebDesignFeatures="wdfeditpages"

Perform an IIS reset (run SharePoint management shell as administrator)

You may need to repeat these steps on multiple servers if you have multiple web front end servers. You can just copy the ONET file and overwrite the same file on the other servers in the same location. Don’t forget to do an IIS reset afterward on each.

Close and re-open your Project Web App site in SharePoint Designer and you should now be able to edit as you do with other sites.