The Problem

Working with PowerApps and Managed Metadata Columns in SharePoint online can be a huge pain. Turns out custom sort order in the Managed Metadata is not supported, but you can force a sort order in your app.

Limited Support for Managed Metadata

I have tried several solutions to the apparent issue that Custom Sort Order in Managed Metadata Fields is not supported. Here I have a list of Payment Methods sorted in the Managed Metadata term store using a custom sort order.

Generate a PDF from Microsoft Flow

Recently I have been asked by a few clients how to create PDF files from SharePoint Online List Items. At first, I was perplexed by this request, it is not something I ever need to do. After a few probing questions, I found that they were using SharePoint in very cool ways and one, in particular, was tracking trouble tickets and then generating an “after action report” for distribution to their customer as a PDF via email.

Jeremy Thake and a bunch of search geeks got together and produced a great guide for creating an Employee Directory. Get your copy from Hyperfish at: https://www.hyperfish.com/employee-directory-signup This will get you a copy of the guide and a link to download the files. He and Mark Anderson also did a whole podcast on the topic. (https://blog.hyperfish.com/employee-directory-in-office-365-and-sharepoint-) There is a ton of great information in the guide and a step by step walk-through of the process. In this video I walk through those steps and demonstrate the differences between SharePoint Online and SharePoint on-premises.

I was asked to have a look at an old unanswered question on Stack Exchange: “Can you create a Query Rule that matches in the middle of the query?”. Challenge accepted. I looked at all of the other options and they either match the beginning, the end, or the entire query. This was SharePoint Enterprise. Good thing. SharePoint Online does not support RegEx in Query Rules, but SharePoint Enterprise does.

I have been working on a client’s project using Azure Automation and Flow to stitch together a solution for easily managing default column metadata in SharePoint Online. (More on that later.) I am using the PnP PowerShell to handle the heavy lifting in my automation scripts. One component I was struggling with was writing complex values back to the list that originates the flow. Specifically, I encountered issues when setting the value of a SPUrl field when the URL contains a comma. If you try this as a string, SharePoint will split on the first comma it finds. Anyway, to my delight I discovered that you can pass a FieldUrlValue object and it works quite nicely. So hopefully this will help others:

I have a client who is transitioning from SharePoint on-premises search to hybrid search with Office 365 and SharePoint Online. They are looking forward to removing several servers from their farm that are currently dedicated to the Indexing and Content Processing roles. They plan to collapse their Search Topology down to two redundant crawlers. This simpler topology is one of the big benefits of Hybrid Search with the SharePoint Cloud Index. Of course, the other big benefit is now you only have one index for all for your content. That single index is served to both your Office 365 Search Center and Delve as well as the on-premises search center. I teach all of this in my class SharePoint and Office 365 Hybrid Workloads, which I teach as a 3-day hands-on online training course and an abbreviated version as a workshop at conferences. (The next one will be in Haarlem, Netherlands October 24^th at SharePoint Unite and in Orlando, FL at SPLive 360, November 12^th.)

This is part 5 of a multi part series on how to use Content Types and SharePoint Search to build search solutions. In this series, I am using the case of a Site Directory as the example. If you are looking for the entire series, start with “Stop Using the Property Bag” to understand my point of view. Then read Search Based Site Directory: Part 1, Search Based Site Directory: Part 2, Search Based Site Directory: Part 3, and Search Based Site Directory: Part 4 to build your content type and prepare the Managed Properties for this article. In these posts, I have been moving through my process for delivering search solutions. The articles are a little out of order so I could balance content in each post. The order only matters up to the creation of the Managed Properties, after that it is up to you based on your requirements.

This is part 4 of a multi part series on how to use Content Types and SharePoint Search to build search solutions. In this series, I am using the case of a Site Directory as the example. If you are looking for the entire series, start with “Stop Using the Property Bag” to understand my point of view. Then read Search Based Site Directory: Part 1, Search Based Site Directory: Part 2 and Search Based Site Directory: Part 3 to build your content type and prepare the Managed Properties for this article. In these posts, I have been moving through my process for delivering search solutions. The articles are a little out of order so I could balance content in each post. The order only matters up to the creation of the Managed Properties, after that it is up to you based on your requirements.

This is part 3 of a multi part series on how to use Content Types and SharePoint Search to build search solutions. In this series, I am using the case of a Site Directory as the example. If you are looking for the entire series, start with “Stop Using the Property Bag” to understand my point of view. Then read Search Based Site Directory: Part 1 and Search Based Site Directory: Part 2 to build your content type for this article.

This is part 2 of a multi part series on how to use Content Types and SharePoint Search to build search solutions. In this series, I am using the case of a Site Directory as the example. If you are looking for the entire series, start with “Stop Using the Property Bag” to understand my point of view. Then read Part 1 to build your content type for this article.

Foundation: Create a Custom List with a Custom Content Type

This is probably the shortest section of the series. It is actually very easy to create a Custom list and associate a content type. It is tricky to find unless you have done it a few times.