The Description section provides an opportunity to provide an explanation of what this field is to be used for, and whatever text is added here will be shown in the document upload form to help the users make an appropriate choice of value.

If we then upload an existing word document to this library, the form will prompt for this new property, and supply the default value that was specified when the site column was created.

This customization improves the metadata search experience, as shown below, and will also enable its use as a refiner in the query results.

Customization of the search results page is done by first choosing "Edit Page" from the Settings cog , then selecting Edit Web Part from the pulldown in the Refinement web part on the left side of the page in the Navigation Zone.

By clicking the "Choose Refiners" button on the resulting Properties menu, the RefinableString00 refiner is added to the "Selected Refiners" list, and given the display name Color.

After using the "Move Up" button to put this new navigator at the top of the "Selected Refiners" list in the Refinement web part, the Color refiners are displayed for search results and available to filter the results to the appropriate selection.

References:

In SharePoint Online in an Office 365 Enterprise environment there is no direct administrative control over the configuration of crawling and indexing.  Unlike an on-premises SharePoint 2013 farm, there is neither visible Search Service Application (SSA), no Content Sources to configure, nor any crawl rules to test and deploy.  Despite these differences the content of an SPO tenant does get crawled and indexed, often becoming searchable within an hour of being added to a site.

While there is no explicit management page available with a button marked "Crawl Logs", the equivalent information is available via an eDiscovery Center site.  The following steps show how to set up a simple case that will specify a global source (i.e. the root site collection) and a generic query of just the tenant's domain name (pfecloud), which will capture the crawl/indexing details for the entire SharePoint Online site.  A larger organization with several large subsites might want to set up multiple cases in order to gather crawling details at more fine-grained level, especially if multiple administrators are involved, each with a different focus and timeframe of interest.

1. Create an eDiscovery Center site collection, as a new private site collection with the appropriate Enterprise template.

2. Create a new Case to get started, with an easy to recognize name.

3. Within this new case, we'll configure first a Source, specifying the root site collection path, and then a Query.  In our case, we'll use a general term to match all entries, using the tenant name that becomes part of the hostname in each page's URL.

After we run the search, the SharePoint tab is populated with the matches, which should be every site, list, and document in this SharePoint Online site.  This shows all the URLs that will be reported in the crawl logs.

4.The next step exports and downloads the report for this case.  The exporter generates a directory structure that includes CSV files (readable with Excel) that separately record successful and failed crawl and indexing attempts.   There is an Export option directly from the bottom of the Query page after the search has completed, or it can be created later as a new item in the Exports list of the eDiscovery Center.

The wizard prompts for the Query (created above) and then offers several options, enabling us to include multiple versions of SharePoint documents and items that might otherwise be left out of the report.

Once created we are given the option to download Results or Report.  The Results consists of all the matching contents of the search, which can be a significant amount of data.  The crawl log information is part of the Report download.

The selection starts a Download Manager process, which prompts for storage location and requires a login to the Office 365 site for authentication.

5.The summary provides an overview of the Search and Export procedure.  The two remaining files make up the Crawl Log data that is neatly divided into failures and successes.

If at first glance the data in the Errors spreadsheet looks somewhat bizarre, it may just be a function of the default column width.

This misalignment is easily corrected via the column auto-fit, by A) clicking on the select all tag in the upper left corner of the worksheet, and B) double-clicking any one of the column dividers.

The SharePoint Results file shows those documents successfully crawled and indexed from the SPO site, and some metadata associated with them.  While the details do not align precisely with the information available an on-premises Crawl Log (e.g. there is no per-URL "Last Time Crawled" or Crawl Rate for a Content Source), there is sufficient detail to understand what is and isn't searchable for a SharePoint Online site, and in the case of errors a "Last Crawl Attempt" timestamp.

References:

"View search diagnostics in SharePoint Server 2013"

- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219611.aspx

"eDiscovery in Office 365"

- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn790281.aspx

"Set up an eDiscovery Center in SharePoint Online"

- https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Set-up-an-eDiscovery-Center-in-SharePoint-Online-A18F8975-AA7F-43B4-A7D6-001D14744D8E

"Export eDiscovery content and create reports"

- https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Export-eDiscovery-content-and-create-reports-7B2EA190-5F9B-4876-86E5-4440354C381A

It is straightforward to install the app directly in the school's Office 365 native language and start using it immediately.  The key to multilingual use is SharePoint's support for multiple sites and subsites within a Site Collection, a logical grouping designed to help structure and administer multiple teams or groups within a larger organization.  Different sites can use different languages, and yet all install a single local copy of the OneNote Class Notebook Creator app.  In the example to follow I've created the initial Office 365 domain in English and created a subsite in Dutch, but the concept applies  to any combination of supported languages, and is not limited to two languages.

The first step to making the OneNote Class Notebook Creator available to all the users within a single SharePoint site is to download the SharePoint app from the Microsoft store to an App Catalog, a special site collection you can create from the SharePoint admin page.

Once the app is installed there, even if downloaded in one language, it is available with full language support for all the sites and subsites in the school's SharePoint domain.  The steps to add OneNote Class Notebook Creator to your app catalog are simple, as shown in the screenshots below.

1. Download the app to the App Catalog by using the "add an app" button

2. Search for OneNote in the provided search box, and follow the link to the SharePoint Store

3. Select the OneNote Class Notebook Creator from the listing.

Note that the OneNote Staff Notebook for Education is also available; this is designed for school administrators and teaching staff to collaborate, without student involvement, but is otherwise similar.

Once the app is available in the App Catalog, you can install it from your main SharePoint site by going to the Site Contents page and using the same "add an app" interface.  A list of locally available apps will appear, labeled "Your Apps".  Click it, and it becomes an installed app in your site and can be used by teachers or other users to create notebooks, as described in OneNote Class Notebook Creator installation guide for IT administrators.

From the same Site Contents page you can then click the "new subsite" option to create a subsite that specifies a different default language.  Here we'll choose a subsite in Dutch.

From this point, the installation of OneNote Class Notebook Creator to the Dutch subsite is the same as in the previous case, but you need to recognize that Inhoud van site is equivalent to Site Contents.  In other words, it would be very helpful to understand Dutch, or whatever alternative language you've chosen that differs from your primary school site.  Again, the steps are:

1. Add an app

2. Click on OneNote Class Notebook Creator

3. Verify that you trust it.

4. It will transition from Installing...

5. ...to Installed...

6. ...and then you can run it to create new class notebooks.

In the end, you'll have a class notebook ready for the students to use.

Once set up in this fashion, you can run OneNote Class Notebook Creator in one language on the main site, e.g.  MySchool.sharepoint.com/, and in a different language in a subsite, e.g. MySchool.sharepoint.com/nederlands.  Note that your primary site might be contained within a different site collection, if your SharePoint site is highly structured, and the URL may then be of the form MySchool.sharepoint.com/sites/nederlands.

A colleague in The Netherlands shared the release with a number of educators, and their initial use quickly prompted some feedback.  Among other things were the following questions that we'll investigate:

• Is there any way to customize the Welcome page for the specific school or institution?

• How can the initial Welcome page be changed to the Dutch (or other) language?

This blog entry and following blog entries will provide details on solving these challenges.

The OneNote Class Notebook Creator app is downloaded and installed to a SharePoint site within your Office 365 environment, and can be accessed and run from the Site Contents page.

Figure 1. The installed app in your Office 365 site

The OneNote Class wizard presents you with some top-level actions to perform, including creation of a new notebook for a specific class: 

Figure 2. The high-level actions available within the Creator app

The Welcome page is one of several elements created when the teacher runs the Creator.

The standard Welcome page contains links to the three standard workspaces: Collaboration Space, Content Library, and per-student notebooks (only one shown in this example): 

Figure 3. The default Welcome page, showing the default elements of a class notebook

Within the SharePoint site, several folders are created along with the first class notebook.  At the top-level, found within the Site Contents page, is EduOneNoteAppDocuments.  This contains a folder in the format teacherName@school.domain_Courses, and within this you will find each class notebook that has been created.  These folders may also be listed in the "Recent" links on the top bar of your SharePoint site, if that link is enabled.

Another element created along with your first class notebook is an internal SharePoint List, in the format EduOneNoteSetupToolList_NNNNNNNN_NNNN_NNNN_NNNNNNNN, where the NNN values indicate a unique UID value for your SharePoint site. Contained within this list is the key to creating a customized Welcome page, in the form of a templates folder.  This folder will be named based on the default language of the SharePoint site where the OneNote Class Notebook Creator is installed, e.g. templates (en-us).  Although this folder is visible as a List item, it is not directly accessible via the SharePoint site interface (i.e. using the browser), and clicking through to it will result in an error message, There are no items to show in this view of the "EduOneNoteSetupToolList_<unique_UID>" list.

The templates folder will, however, be available from the OneNote application, via the FILE=>Export mechanism.  So the following steps will allow you to create a customized Welcome page, to be applied to each subsequent Class Notebook.

    1. After installing the OneNote Class Notebook Creator app in your Office 365 SharePoint site, run it and use the wizard to create a notebook called Template.

    2. Modify the Welcome page in this Template notebook in the style you want subsequent notebooks to follow.  You can leave placeholders for words or elements that might change from class to class, as in the following highlighted example:

    3.      Export this page to the templates (en-us) folder, via FILE => Export => Export, specifying "Page" and "OneNote 2010-2013 Section" format.  This will require using the Save As dialog to change the folder from the current location to the overall templates folder, by going up to the <SharePointSite>/Lists folder, then back down to the EduOneNoteSetupToolList_NNNNNNNN_NNNN_NNNN_NNNNNNNN/Templates (en-us) folder.

Use the up arrow (circled) to move to upper folders in the SharePoint site hierarchy.

Then from the Lists folder, click down into the specified folder to reach the templates folder, and into it also.

    4.      You can use the file dialog box to first save the existing file Welcome.one by renaming it to e.g. Welcome_DISTRIBUTION.one.

     Finally, save the updated page as the new Welcome.one page.

Any subsequent Class Notebooks you create will have this new modified page as its default Welcome page, and it can be customized by the subject teacher as needed for a particular class.  In this example, the modifications were very minor, but a school might choose to have a highly customized Welcome page with their own logo, images, and links.