Microsoft Word Research - Providing SharePoint Search features from within Microsoft Office 2010 and 2013 1 An Intro!

As you may be aware as a SharePoint worker, that there are many integration points between SharePoint and

Microsoft Office, particularly as SharePoint becomes closer and closer to becoming a crucial part in the

Microsoft Office product line. This presents many new opportunities for improving value to users, and also

means that the path to ‘User Adoption’ of SharePoint made simpler, and enhanced, by evangelising Microsoft

Office features that exposes SharePoint integration.

One of those features is within Microsoft Office Word, known as Research, which allows individuals to

customize options to suit their research needs.

This feature can be used to expose SharePoint search, meaning that individuals can locate information they

have access to on SharePoint within Microsoft Office Word, without having to go to the SharePoint site.

This means that information workers could lookup anything they want directly within Word, without having to

go somewhere else for viewing extra articulation over desired document content.

Interestingly, it is often the case that when I talk to information workers about this functionality that they are

not aware of the existence of the Office Research pane and how they can use it from inside Word, Excel, or

PowerPoint (and indeed OneNote or Visio) - hence this article!

Ok, just before I begin, let me clarify that there are other ways of exposing search features of SharePoint

without having to directly be in SharePoint (see my Study Guide on SharePoint chapter 5 for more information,

for example). Moreover, they concern the use of Window Explorer as a method to expose SharePoint search

(another article brewing...) - this article concerns the use of Office products.

So, this quick guide goes into detail on what is needed to configure the search option within Microsoft Office.

2 How does the Research option work

To work with SharePoint, the Research feature needs to connect to SharePoint search services. These search

services are available from any SharePoint site. You can connect and register to these services on an on-

premise SharePoint site collection and an Office 365 Public or Private site.

The service to connect and to register into Word is search.asmx, which is a Query Web Service for SharePoint.

Search.asmx is a web service, and because it is a web service it is simple to configure. Note also that because it

is a web service that it is only available in IIS, and only callable from HTTP / HTTPS

Here is an example of a search web service called through http

In SharePoint 2013, the same functionality is exposed in search.asmx - here is a screenshot of the same web

service there:

As you can see from the above, this web service exposes functionality which is required for the Research

option to connect to. The http line used to call this is http://sharepointsite/_vti_bin/search.asmx - we will

need to use this line later. Go ahead and try it out for yourself on a site to see the response.

Note that for Office365 sites, they are prefixed by https; additionally, you must ensure that you are signed on

to the site before registering the service (more on that later).

Once Research has been configured with the relevant web service and pointing to the site you wish to expose,

the same search feature is available in Office products such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, One Note, Visio and

Publisher.

3 – Procedure to configure the Research option

To configure the Research option, you will need to do some 'research' yourself first in identifying:

1. Is the site on-premise or Office 365

2. What site you wish to draw information from

3. What version of Office are you going to use? Office 2010 or Office 2013

Once you have done that, it is a case of configuring the Research feature. Lets go into some detail on how that

can be achieved.

3.1 Office 2010 connecting with On-Premise

The scenario here is that you have a user who wants to be able to search a SharePoint site (called

http://intranet for example) within Microsoft Word 2010 and the SharePoint site is on-premise. Note that this

procedure is the same whether using on-premise SharePoint 2010 or SharePoint 2013.

The procedure is as follows:

1: Launch Microsoft Office Word 2010

2: In the Ribbon, click the Review tab to open up the Review section in the ribbon:

This will display the Research option located in the Proofing section of the Review section. If that button is not

there you will have to provision it using the Backstage and customize the ribbon to include the Research option.

3: Click the Research button to display the Research pane to the right of the application display.

The research pane looks identical whether in Office 2010 or Office 2013. For more information about the

functionality of the Research Panel, check out the following section here.

4: At the foot of the Research panel, click the Research options link ( ) to display the

Research options dialog.

5: At the foot of the Research options dialog, click the Add Services button

6: Now the real important part. This is where you need to register the relevant search service which as

mentioned before is part of the callable http address of the SharePoint site you wish to invoke search from.

In the Address prompt, enter the site http, then /_vti_bin/search.asmx

Using the example URL above (http://intranet) I would enter this:

http://intranet/_vti_bin/search.asmx

7: Click the Add button at the foot of the dialog.

Note. You may be asked to authenticate - check that you have access to the site that you wish to register the

search service with.

8: If you have successfully connected to the search service, the Microsoft Search Service 2010 Setup dialog will

be displayed, along with the site search service that has been registered, and below the Title of the site.

9: Click the Install button to complete the registration then the success dialog will be displayed:

10: Click OK to complete the procedure.

Ok, so that is all that is required to register the search web service using the Research option in Word 2010.

For more information on how to now use the search features check out this topic.

3.2 Office 2010 with Office 365

On with the next scenario; connecting Office 2010 with Office 365. The user is a member of a private

SharePoint Office 365 site. Most steps as given in the Office 2010 are the same; however, key differences are

authentication and the use of https.

Note. Make sure the user has already logged into the Office 365 site before setting this up. If you do not do

this, you will find issues with provisioning of the search web service.

Describing the procedure then. Refer to the Office 2010 connecting with On-Premise, and follow steps 1

through to 6. At step 7 where you need to enter the name of the service you will need to enter the URL of the

site and append _vti_bin/search.asmx at the end.

For example, if your Office365 site https:// mysharepointsite.sharepoint.com then the search service URL

would be https://mysharepointsite.sharepoint.com/_vti_bin/search.asmx

Then, after clicking Add to add the service you may well be prompted by IE as there is a Secure Server

Authority certificate issued:

Following that the service should be added as per step 8 through to 10 in the Office 2010 guide above.

3.3 Office 2013 with Office 365 2013 Preview

The key difference in Office 2013 is that the Research button is not available by default as it was in Office 2010.

That is not a problem since it can be added. To do this, go to the Backstage, Options, Customize Ribbon, Switch

to All Commands then scroll down to the Research... item to add them into a Custom Group.

Once added back, opening up the new custom group created and clicking on the Research button will bring up

the same pane as seen in Office 2010.

Then, its a case of carrying out the same steps as shown with Office 365.

Here's an example of registering the search web service against my Office 365 preview site:

Confirmation of connection made, now to install and register the service:

Once saved, we can go back and confirm the service properties as well:

4 The Results Pane

The top of the Research pane will look like this:

The initial prompt box is where one would enter what needs to be located. The drop down box (initially

labelled BING in the above example), is where the relevant registered search service can be selected from.

Below the registered search service (and below the previous and next search buttons) is the results pane.

Initially, before any search is carried out the message above 'Type text to look up a variety of research and

reference services' is simply an instruction.

and the bottom of the pane will look like this:

The key for this article is Research options...

5 Executing a Search

Using the Research pane to locate information from one of the registered search services provided is easy.

There are two methods when attempting a search. One of them is based on using the search facility located at

the top of the Research pane. The other, is by using shortcut keys and dropping your typing cursor over a

word, or by selecting a phrase then pressing the ALT key.

Lets demonstrate both of these methods. Note that before doing this you would have either (a) registered a

search service from your SharePoint site and/or (b) know how to access the Research pane.

5.1 Search using the Research Pane

As shown in the above screen shot, simply typing in a search term, selecting the service will display search

results. Note that the search term can use the search engine terms, like AND, NOT, OR or the plus (+) / minus (-

) keys.

5.2 Search using Shortcut Keys

You may have noticed when looking at the research pane for the first time that a message 'You can also press

ALT and click a word to start a search' is displayed.

This is a good shortcut key to use!

This means that if there is text in a document, by positioning the mouse over a word, pressing ALT and clicking

the word will automatically copy the word into the search entry point in the Research page and start a search

based on the service selected.

This can also be carried out for selected text too. For example, highlighting a group of words, then pressing ALT

and clicking that selected group of words will copy that into the search entry point.

6 Summary

With the browser being the centre of the universe in peoples eyes; the Microsoft Research facility may not

have been used quite as much - however, this feature provides one click access to material that can be used

for information sources. Because SharePoint provides a central location for shared content, it is, I think a very

useful tool for those who need to gather content without having to continually swop out into the browser, and

present core search features of a companies SharePoint enterprise to Microsoft Office.

Finally, some points to mull over:

1. If you plan to use this with Office 365, and finding problem signing into the account (like I did!) ensure that your Microsoft Online Services Sign-in Assistant is up to date. Go to https://portal.microsoftonline.com/OLS/mysoftware.aspx", click at "desktop setup", click at "set up" and follow the wizard. This will bring up the "Microsoft Online Services Sign-in Assistant" to the current version.

2. Do not rush to implement this feature to information workers who are new to SharePoint. Instead, teach this feature as part of their introduction to using SharePoint (otherwise this feature may give them an excuse not to use SharePoint at all!)