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Configure refiners and faceted navigation in SharePoint Server

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You can add refiners to a page to help users quickly browse to specific content. Refiners are based on managed properties from the search index. To use managed properties as refiners, the managed properties must be enabled as refiners, or crawled properties must be mapped to managed properties that are enabled as refiners.

Faceted navigation is the process of browsing for content by filtering on refiners that are tied to category pages. Faceted navigation lets you specify different refiners for category pages, even when the underlying page displaying the categories is the same. For information about category pages, see "Category pages and catalog item pages" in Overview of cross-site publishing in SharePoint Server.

Important

You can apply faceted navigation only to publishing sites that use Overview of managed navigation in SharePoint Server, and for lists or libraries that have been Share a library or list as a catalog.

Before you begin

Review the information in "Plan refiners and faceted navigation" in Plan search for cross-site publishing sites in SharePoint Server 2016.

About configuring refiners for different data types

When a catalog is crawled, SharePoint Server automatically creates managed properties for all site columns that contain values. These automatically created managed properties use the Text data type. To make sure that refiners that use the Number, Currency, Integer, and Date and Time data types are displayed in the correct format, you can do one of the following:

  1. Use the procedure that is described in Map a crawled property to a refinable managed property in SharePoint site collection administration. This procedure can be performed by site collection administrators. We recommend that you use this procedure for all data types.

  2. Create a managed property, add the type code to the property name, and then enable it as a refiner. This procedure can only be performed by an administrator of the Search service application.

  3. Add JavaScript to the page where the refiners are displayed. For more information, see Add JavaScript to a page to display refiners in the correct format .

Map a crawled property to a refinable managed property in SharePoint site collection administration

Site collection administrators can configure refiners because the search schema has many managed properties that are enabled as refiners by default. These managed properties are listed in the following table. Before site collection administrators can use these managed properties as refiners on their web pages, they must map the appropriate crawled property to the managed property that is enabled as a refiner. To make it easier to work with these properties when doing additional refiner configuration in Term Store Management, you can specify a user-friendly alias name for the managed property.

For an overview of managed properties that are enabled as refiners by default, see Managed properties that are enabled as refiners by default.

Note

This procedure is performed on the authoring site collection.

To map a crawled property to a refinable managed property

  1. Verify that the user account that performs this procedure is a site collection administrator on the authoring site collection.

  2. On the authoring site collection, on the Settings menu, click Site settings.

  3. On the Site Settings page, in the Site Collection Administration section, click Search Schema.

  4. On the Managed Properties page, in the Managed property filter box, type the name of a refinable managed property — for example, RefinableString00 — and then click the arrow.

  5. In the Property Name column, click the refinable managed property that you want to edit.

  6. To specify an alias of the refinable managed property to use when you configure refiners for faceted navigation, on the Edit Managed Property page, type a user-friendly name in the Alias box.

Important

For properties that use the data type Managed Metadata, the alias must consist of the type code, owstaxId , followed by the property name. For example, for a property named Color that uses the Managed Metadata data type, the alias for the refinable managed property must be owstaxIdColor .

  1. In the Mappings to crawled properties section, click Add a Mapping.

  2. In the Crawled property selection dialog, find the crawled property that you want to map to the refinable managed property in the list, or search for it by typing the name of the crawled property in the box, and then clicking Find.

Important

When you search for a crawled property, you may find two crawled properties that represent the same content. For example, a site column of type Text named Color will during crawl discover two crawled properties: ows_Color and ows_q_TEXT_Color . Crawled properties that begin with either ows_r<four letter code> , ows_q<four letter code> , or ows_taxId are automatically created crawled properties. When you select a crawled property to map to a refinable managed property, make sure that you don't map the automatically created crawled property. Instead, always map the crawled property that begins with ows_ . > For more information about automatically created crawled properties, see Automatically created managed properties in SharePoint Server.

  1. Click OK.

  2. On the Edit Managed Property page, click OK.

Note

To configure refiners in Web Parts or in Term Store Management, you must start a full crawl of the content source that contains the refinable managed properties. For more information, see Configure search for cross-site publishing.

Enable automatically created managed properties as refiners in SharePoint Central Administration

All automatically created managed properties use the Text data type. To make sure that the refiners are displayed in the correct format, you should only enable an automatically created managed property as a refiner if it is based on a site column that uses the data type Text, Managed Metadata, or Person or Group. For other data types, you must create a managed property, add the type code to the property name, and enable the managed property as a refiner.

For more information about automatically created managed properties, see Automatically created managed properties in SharePoint Server.

To enable an automatically created managed property as a refiner

  1. Verify that the user account that performs this procedure is an administrator of the Search service application.

  2. In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

  3. On the Manage Service Applications page, click the Search service application in which you want to enable the managed property as a refiner.

  4. On the Search Administration page, in the Quick Launch, under Queries and Results, click Search Schema.

  5. On the Managed Properties page, in the Managed property filter box, type the name of the managed property that you want to enable as refiner, and then click the arrow.

  6. In the Property Name column, click the managed property that you want to edit.

  7. On the Edit Managed Property page, in the Refinable section, select either Yes - active or Yes - latent. If you select Yes - latent, you can switch the refiner to active later without having to do a full crawl.

  8. Click OK.

Note

To configure refiners in Web Parts or in Term Store Management, you must complete a full crawl of the content source that contains the refinable managed properties. For more information, see Configure search for cross-site publishing.

To create a managed property, add type code to the name, and enable a managed property as a refiner

  1. Verify that the user account that performs this procedure is an administrator of the Search service application.

  2. In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

  3. On the Manage Service Applications page, click the Search service application in which you want to create a managed property.

  4. On the Search Administration page, in the Quick Launch, under Queries and Results, click Search Schema.

  5. On the Managed Properties page, click New Managed Property.

  6. On the New Managed Property page, in the Property name box, in the Name and description section, type the name of the new managed property, followed by the appropriate type code. For an overview of type codes, see Type codes.

  7. In the Type section, select the appropriate data type.

  8. In the Main characteristics section, set the following selections:

  • Queryable

  • Refinable: Yes - active or Yes - latent

    You can also specify additional settings in this section.

  1. In the Mappings to crawled properties section, click Add a mapping.

  2. In the Crawled property selection dialog, find the crawled property that you want to map to the managed property in the list, or search for it by typing the name of the crawled property in the box, and then clicking Find.

Important

When you search for a crawled property, you may find two crawled properties that represent the same content. For example, a site column of type Date and Time named Created will during crawl discover two crawled properties: ows_Created and ows_q_DATE_Created . Crawled properties that begin with either ows_r<four letter code>, ows_q<four letter code> or ows_taxId are automatically created crawled properties. When you select a crawled property to map to a managed property, make sure that you don't map the automatically created crawled property. Instead, always map the crawled property that begins with ows_.

  1. Click OK.

Note

To configure refiners in Web Parts or in Term Store Management, you must complete a full crawl of the content source that contains the refinable managed properties. For more information, see Configure search for cross-site publishing.

Configure refiners for faceted navigation

Before you start the procedures in this section, verify the following:

Enable a term set for faceted navigation

To configure refiners for faceted navigation, you must first enable the relevant term set for faceted navigation. This procedure is performed on the authoring site collection.

To enable a term set for faceted navigation

  1. Verify that the user account that performs this procedure is a member of the Designers SharePoint group on the authoring site collection.

  2. On the authoring site collection, on the Settings menu, click Site settings.

  3. On the Site Settings page, in the Site Administration section, click Term store management.

  4. In the TAXONOMY TERM STORE section, click to select the term set that you want to enable for faceted navigation.

  5. Click the INTENDED USE tab, and then select Use this Term Set for Faceted Navigation.

  6. Click Save.

Add refiners to a term set

When configuring refiners for faceted navigation, you can add refiners to all terms in a term set or to specific terms in a term set. This procedure is performed on the authoring site collection.

To add refiners to all terms in a term set

  1. Verify that the user account that performs this procedure is a member of the Designers SharePoint group on the authoring site collection.

  2. On the authoring site collection, on the Settings menu, click Site settings.

  3. On the Site Settings page, in the Site Administration section, click Term store management.

  4. In the TAXONOMY TERM STORE section, click the term set that you have enabled for faceted navigation.

  5. Click the FACETED NAVIGATION tab, and then click Customize refiners.

  6. On the Refinement Configuration page, in the Available refiners section, use the buttons to select which refiners should be added to the term set, and also to specify the order in which you want the refiners to appear. If you have specified an alias for a refinable managed property, this alias is displayed in the Configuration section.

  7. In the Configuration for section, specify how you want each refiner to appear.

  8. Click OK to close the Refinement Configuration page, and then click Save.

To add refiners to specific terms in a term set

  1. Verify that the user account that performs this procedure is a member of the Designers SharePoint group on the authoring site collection.

  2. On the authoring site collection, on the Settings menu, click Site settings.

  3. On the Site Settings page, in the Site Administration section, click Term store management.

  4. In the TAXONOMY TERM STORE section, click the term set that you have enabled for faceted navigation, and then click the term to which you want to add term-specific refiners.

  5. Click the FACETED NAVIGATION tab, and then click Stop inheriting.

  6. Click FACETED NAVIGATION tab, and then click Customize refiners.

  7. On the Refinement Configuration page, in the Available refiners section, use the buttons to select which refiners should be added to the term set, and also to specify the order in which you want the refiners to appear. If you have specified an alias for a refinable managed property, this alias is displayed in the Configuration section.

  8. In the Configuration for section, specify how you want each refiner to appear.

  9. Click OK to close the Refinement Configuration page, and then click Save.

Set intervals for refiner values

For refiners that contain numeric values, you can present the numeric values within different intervals. For example, if you want end-users to be able to refine based on price, it would be useful to specify different price ranges instead of showing all available prices as separate refiners. This procedure is performed in the authoring site collection.

To set ranges for refiner values

  1. Add refiners to a term set as described in Add refiners to a term set earlier in this article.

  2. On the Refinement Configuration page, in the Selected refiners section, click the refiner that you want to set ranges for.

  3. In the Configuration for section, for Intervals, select Custom, and then type the ranges in the Thresholds box.

  4. Click OK to close the Refinement Configuration page, and then click Save.

Additional steps

To show refiners on a page, you must add a Refinement Panel Web Part to the page where you want the refiners to appear. For more information, see Configure Search Web Parts in SharePoint Server.

Add JavaScript to a page to display refiners in the correct format

To make sure that refiners that use the Number, Currency, Integer, and Date and Time data types are displayed in the correct format, you can add JavaScript to the page where the refiners are displayed. You can add the JavaScript by adding a Content Editor Web Part, which you then hide from being displayed on the page.

Note that there are two methods depending on whether you are using the default display template, Filter_Default, or another display template in your Refinement Web Part.

To add JavaScript to a page to display refiners in the correct format when you are using the default display template

  1. Verify that the user account that performs this procedure is a member of the Designers SharePoint group on the publishing site collection.

  2. Browse to the page where the refiners are displayed.

  3. Click the Settings menu, and then click Edit page.

  4. In a Web Part Zone, click Add a Web Part.

  5. In the Categories list, click Media and Content.

  6. In the Parts list, click Content Editor, and then click Add.

  7. In the Web Part, click Click here to add new content, and type one of the following two code strings:

# To ensure correct refiner formatting by using type code:
Srch.ValueInfo.overrideRenderingForProperty( "<ManagedPropertyName>", "Property<TypeCode>" );
# To ensure correct refiner formatting by using a managed properties that is enabled as a refiner by default:
Srch.ValueInfo.overrideRenderingForProperty("<ManagedPropertyName>", "<DefaultRefinableManagedProperty>");

Where:

  • <ManagedPropertyName> is the name of the managed property that is enabled as a refiner, for example CreatedOWSDATE.

  • <TypeCode> is a seven letter code indicating the data type, for example OWSDATE . For an overview of type codes, see Type codes.

  • <DefaultRefinableManagedProperty> is the name of a managed property that is enabled as a refiner by default, for example RefinableDate00 . For an overview of managed properties that are enabled as refiners by default, see Managed properties that are enabled as refiners by default.

  1. In the Web Part, click the Content Editor Web Part Menu arrow, and then click Edit Web Part.

  2. In the Web Part tool pane, expand the Layout section, and then select the check box Hidden.

  3. Click OK.

To add JavaScript to a page to display refiners in the correct format when you are not using the default display template

  1. Verify that the user account that performs this procedure is a member of the Designers SharePoint group on the publishing site collection.

  2. Browse to the page where the refiners are displayed.

  3. Click the Settings menu, and then click Edit page.

  4. In a Web Part Zone, click Add a Web Part.

  5. In the Categories list, click Media and Content.

  6. In the Parts list, click Content Editor, and then click Add.

  7. In the Web Part, click Click here to add new content, and then type the following code strings:

# To ensure correct refiner formatting by using type code:
Srch.ValueInfo.overrideRefinementTemplateForProperty("<ManagedPropertyName>", "Property<TypeCode>", "~sitecollection/<PathToDisplayTemplate>" );
# To ensure correct refiner formatting by using a managed properties that is enabled as a refiner by default:
Srch.ValueInfo.overrideRefinementTemplateForProperty("<ManagedPropertyName>", "<DefaultRefinableManagedProperty>", "~sitecollection/<PathToDisplayTemplate>" );

Where:

  • <ManagedPropertyName> is the name of the managed property that is enabled as a refiner, for example CreatedOWSDATE .

  • <TypeCode> is a seven letter code indicating the data type, for example OWSDATE . For an overview of type codes, see Type codes.

  • <DefaultRefinableManagedProperty> is the name of a managed property that is enabled as a refiner by default, for example RefinableDate00 . For an overview of managed properties that are enabled as refiners by default, see Managed properties that are enabled as refiners by default.

  • <PathToDisplayTemplate> is the path of the display template that you are using in the Refinement Web Part, for example catalogs\masterpage\Display Templates\Filters\MyDisplayTemplate.js .

  1. In the Web Part, click the Content Editor Web Part Menu arrow, and then click Edit Web Part.

  2. In the Web Part tool pane, expand the Layout section, and then select the check box Hidden.

  3. Click OK.

Reference tables

Managed properties that are enabled as refiners by default

Managed property name Data type for mapping.
RefinableDate00 - RefinableDate19
Values contain dates.
RefinableDecimal00 - RefinableDecimal09
Values contain numbers with maximum three decimals.
RefinableDouble00 - RefinableDouble09
Values contain numbers with more than three decimals.
RefinableInt00 - RefinableInt49
Values are whole numbers.
RefinableString00 - RefinableString99
Values are strings. This includes values that use the data type Text, Person or Group, Managed Metadata, Choice and Yes/No

Type codes

Site column type Type code Example of managed property name with type code
Number
OWSNMBR
ManagedPropertyNameOWSNMBR
Currency
OWSCURR
ManagedPropertyNameOWSCURR
Date and Time
OWSDATE
ManagedPropertyNameOWSDATE
Integer*
OWSINTG
ManagedPropertyNameOWSINTG

*Column creation not available through user interface.

See also

Concepts

Automatically created managed properties in SharePoint Server

Configure Search Web Parts in SharePoint Server

Other Resources

Blog post: Configure refiners for faceted navigation

Configure search for cross-site publishing