Propagation time for centrally managed/defined Search Result Sources with web parts

Question

Propagation time for centrally managed/defined Search Result Sources with web parts

Rene Wagner 1

Hi,

To implement a more governed environment, we are planning to use centrally-defined Search Result Sources (i.e. defined in Central Admin) to provide results for some Search Result web parts on our sites. So we created the Result Sources and then added Search Result web parts and configured the query to make use of the Search Result Sources to display the relevant results. This all works fine.

Now I make some changes to the Result Source in Central Admin, but when I go to the sites where the web parts are defined it does not look like those changes take effect (at least not immediately). The question I have is -- if changes are made to the result source in Central Admin, what has to happen for these changes to apply to the web parts that use these result sources? Is there a job that has to run to propagate these changes out? Is there some other process that has to complete like clearing/updating the browser cache? Or something else one has to do to get those updates to appear in the sites?

Thanks

2 answers

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Answer 1

Echo Du_MSFT 17,316

Hello @Rene Wagner ,

Welcome to Q&A Forum!

According to my research, when make some changes to the Result Source in Central Admin, you need to run Full Crawl again.

Here is my test:

1.Edit the Result Source in Central Admin

2.Start Full Crawl for the Content source

3.Go to the Search Center site (or site collection) Site Settings page as a site admin

4.Click Result Sources, make sure this Result Source set as default. In my test, my Result Source named [Test1202].

5.Go to the results.aspx and click Edit page. For example: http://sp:81/sites/search/Pages/results.aspx

6.Click "Edit Web Part" on the Search Results web part

7.On the Search Reults windows, click "Change query" button

8.Make sure the value of "Select a query" is [Test1202].

9.Save and Publish this page.

Thanks,
Echo Du

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Echo Du_MSFT 17,316 Reputation points

2021-12-08T01:09:36.903+00:00

Hello @Rene Wagner ,

Would you tell me whether your issue has been resolved or have any update?
I am looking forward to your reply.

Have a nice day!

Thanks,
Echo Du
Echo Du_MSFT 17,316 Reputation points

2021-12-10T02:46:02.997+00:00

Hi @Rene Wagner ,

Have you tried the solution I proposed?

If you have any questions or progress, you can contact me in time.

Looking forward to your reply

Have a lucky day! : )

Thanks,
Echo Du
JoyZ 18,111 Reputation points

2021-12-13T04:02:37.477+00:00

@Rene Wagner ,

Do you have any progress on this issue?

Please remember to update this thread if you need further assistance.
Rene Wagner 161 Reputation points

2021-12-13T17:31:30.063+00:00

So based on my findings it looks like there is no need to run a full crawl when you make changes to a Result Source that is centrally defined (via CA). You make the change and shortly after you can see the updates on the sites where the Result Source is being used. You also do not have to edit/update the webparts that are using it ... or am I missing something?

This is actually the behavior I would have expected (and was hoping for) as it would seem very counterintuitive and extremely useless to have a centrally defined Results Source if you have to run a full crawl or update a web part every time you modify a result source especially in a true PROD environment with hundreds or even thousands of sites that use the Result Source and possibly millions of items to be crawled.

Thanks

Answer 2

sadomovalex 3,636

in one of the previous projects (SP on-prem) we programmatically forced Full crawl during provisioning (when managed properties and result sources were configured) from PowerShell in order to have changes in place faster. Unfortunately don't have more details or examples already - it was long time ago.

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Propagation time for centrally managed/defined Search Result Sources with web parts

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