Microsoft Search Delivers Faster, Smarter, & More Relevant Results

Let’s face it, as humans, we spend a lot of our day searching for things—our wallet, our glasses, our inspiration. The reality is we’re spending a lot of time searching for stuff at the ‘office’ too. One of the most common requests from our clients is to make their intranet search more robust. And rightfully so. Employees encounter new challenges every day, and they need to find the content and information they need to get their job done quickly, easily, and efficiently. According to a study by IDC, data professionals spend 22.2% of their workweek just searching for information. Let’s properly present the information our employees need so they can spend that 22% on something far more productive.  

To help enterprises with this common ask, Microsoft launched its unified search experience, Microsoft Search, back in 2018 and made it generally available in 2019.  

What is Microsoft Search? 

Microsoft Search is an intelligent search engine for the modern workplace that delivers relevant results for your organization across applications and services. It surfaces relevant content from across your Microsoft 365 ecosystem to keep your users engaged and productive.  

 

How does it work? 

The Microsoft Search feature is turned on for all Microsoft Apps within your Microsoft 365 ecosystem. It appears in the header bar and is presented in the same place throughout each app. 

The search feature utilizes artificial intelligence (AI), Microsoft Graph, to bring in relevant results for each user. This AI also reads plain language and utilizes the most relevant word or phrase within a query to make search more effective. Results are also based on the user’s permissions, so they only see what they have access to within your organization.  

The graph AI also ranks the results based on relevance, making the results more personal to the end–user. Each user sees personally curated results even if they use the same keywords.  

 

Where does it appear? 

In SharePoint:

For more details on how to utilize the search bar across different areas in SharePoint, check out our post, Search Like a Pro using the M365 Search Bar in SharePoint.  

In OneDrive:

In Outlook:

Benefits of Microsoft Search 

Unlike “classic” search, Microsoft Search provides a ready–to–use robust tool without any required setup. It empowers you to search across Microsoft 365 applications and quickly get relevant and personalized results so you can get back to working on the important stuff. And as an added bonus, search results suggestions are provided within the search bar based on previous activities. So, the more you search the smarter it gets!  

There are also options to customize certain aspects of Microsoft Search to show more useful content and enhance the user experience. 

Is your team struggling to find the resources they need? Do want to find a way to give your employees 22% of their day back? We’re here to help! Chat with a PixelMill search expert today!