SharePoint Online – Linking a Property Bag to a Managed Property

Previously I discussed what a property bag was and how to configure it within your environment.  The next step in utilizing this property bag is to make it searchable.  This can help users find locations they need to based on the site’s property bag values.  Even better, however, Microsoft 365 can use the property bag values to enhance features within Microsoft Purview, such as retention policies and retention label policies.  In this post, we’ll cover how to make your property bag searchable by linking a property bag to a managed property.

Linking a Property Bag to a Managed Property

The first step after the property bag is created and time has been given to ensure it is added to the index is to check if a crawled property was created.  Building on the previous post, we need to check and ensure the “OwnerDept” property exists in the schema.  To do this:

1. Navigate to https://<domain>-admin.sharepoint.com
2. In the left side menu click on More Features
3. Click on Open under Search
4. Select the first option: Manage Search Schema
5. Click on Crawled Property
6. Perform a search for the property bag key created previously.

Next, to make this property bag value searchable, we need to connect it with a managed property.  It is possible to create a new managed property, but the recommended method is to use one of the Microsoft-provided refinable managed properties.  The reason for this is that a new managed property requires a full index to run on the environment to show up in the search schema, and in SharePoint Online, this is not controllable by admins.  Using the provided managed properties provides a much quicker turnaround.  In this case, we’ll use RefinableString05

Important Note: Microsoft provides 200 RefinableString managed properties.  However, Purview features can only utilize RefinableString 0 to 99.

To set the property bag as a managed property:

1. Click on the RefinableString you wish to use
2. Scroll down to the section titled “Mappings to Crawled Properties“
3. Click on Add a Mapping

4. Search for the crawled property, select it, and click OK.

5. Click OK in the managed property page.

Once this process is complete you’ll be able to search sites based on the department ownership (or whichever property you choose to use) utilizing the RefineableString selected in the process.

 

Thanks for reading!