Hybrid search in SharePoint

Hybrid search lets your users search for files and documents across SharePoint Server and Office 365 at the same time. Depending on how you set up hybrid search, you can have only on-premises users search for content stored in Office 365, only online users search for content stored in SharePoint Server, or both user groups search for content stored in the other environment.

There are two variants of hybrid search:

•         Cloud hybrid search
•         Hybrid federated search

     Hybrid search?

     With the cloud hybrid search solution for SharePoint, you index all your crawled content, including on-premises content, in your search index in Office 365. When users enter a query in a search center, they get search results from the Office 365 search index, and thus get results both from on-premises and Office 365 content.

     Hybrid federated search?

     With the hybrid federated search solution for SharePoint, you federate results from your search index in SharePoint Server 2013 and your search index in Office 365. When users enter a query in a search center, they get search results from the Office 365 search index and from the SharePoint Server 2013 search index, and thus get results both from on-premises and Office 365 content.

     Cloud hybrid search or hybrid federated search - what's the difference for your users?     With cloud hybrid search, search results come from one search index. A search center in for example SharePoint Online in Office 365 displays and ranks results in one single result block. SharePoint Online calculates search relevance ranking and refiners for all your results, regardless of whether the results come from on-premises or Office 365 content.

With hybrid federated search, search results come from two indexes. A search center in for example SharePoint Online in Office 365 displays and ranks results in two result blocks. SharePoint Online displays and ranks search results from Office 365 content, but uses the ranking from SharePoint Server 2013 for search results from on-premises content and displays these search results in the order that they arrive.

Should you choose cloud hybrid search or hybrid federated search?

We recommend that you choose cloud hybrid search for these benefits:

• ·        Your users get unified search results, search relevance ranking, and refiners even if your organization has a hybrid deployment with content both on-premises and in Office 365.
• ·        Your users automatically get the newest SharePoint Online search experience without your organization having to update your existing SharePoint servers.
• ·        Your users can use cloud capabilities such as Office Delve also for your on-premises content.
• ·        You no longer have to worry about the size of your search index, because your search index is in Office 365. This means that the footprint of your SharePoint Server 2013 search farm is smaller, and your total cost of ownership for search is lower.
• ·        You don't need to upgrade any of your existing installations of SharePoint to have enterprise search in the cloud because SharePoint Server 2013 supports crawling of existing SharePoint Server 2007, SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Server 2013 content farms.
• ·        You no longer have to migrate your search index to a newer version of SharePoint because this happens automatically for you in Office 365.
• If you have some on-premises content that’s highly sensitive and shouldn’t be indexed outside your on-premises network, then we recommend using a combination of cloud hybrid search and hybrid federated search.

New and improved features in SharePoint Server 2016

Feature	Description
Access Services	New Access features are available when you deploy Access Services in SharePoint Server 2016 .
Compliance features	New compliance features for SharePoint Server 2016 include the document deletion and in-place hold policies.
Customized web parts	The compile time for customized XSLT files used for Content Query, Summary Links, and Table of Contents Web Parts is improved.
Document Library accessibility	SharePoint Server 2016 includes new document library accessibility features.
Durable links	Resource-based URLs now retain links when documents are renamed or moved in SharePoint.
Encrypted Connections	SharePoint Server 2016 supports TLS 1.2 connection encryption by default.
Fast Site Collection Creation	The Fast Site Collection Creation feature is a rapid method to create site collections and sites in SharePoint.
Filenames - expanded support for special characters	SharePoint Server 2016 now supports using some special characters in file names that were blocked in previous versions.
Hybrid in SharePoint 2016	Hybrid in SharePoint Server 2016 enables you to integrate your on-premises farm with Office 365 productivity experiences, allowing you to adopt the cloud at your own pace.
Identify and search for sensitive content	SharePoint Server 2016 now provides the same data loss prevention capabilities as Office 365.
Image and video previews	You can now preview images and videos in SharePoint Server 2016 document libraries.
Information Rights Management	SharePoint Server 2016 provides Information Rights Management (IRM) capabilities to secure information by encrypting and securing information on SharePoint libraries with OneDrive for Business.
Large file support	SharePoint Server 2016 now supports uploading and downloading files larger than 2,047 MB.
MinRole	MinRole is a new feature in SharePoint Server 2016 that allows a SharePoint farm administrator to define each server’s role in a farm topology.
Mobile experience	SharePoint Server 2016 offers an improved mobile navigation experience.
New features in November 2016 PU for SharePoint Server 2016 (Feature Pack 1)	The November 2016 Public Update for SharePoint Server 2016 (Feature Pack 1) offers seven new features for SharePoint Server 2016.
New controls for working with OneDrive for Business	SharePoint Server 2016 provides controls at the top of your personal document folders that make common tasks in OneDrive for Business more accessible.
New Recycle Bin in OneDrive and Team sites	SharePoint Server 2016 adds a link for the Recycle Bin in the left navigation area of the OneDrive and Team sites.
Open Document Format (ODF)	SharePoint Server 2016 adds support for Open Document Format (ODF) files to use in document library templates.
Project Server	New Project Server features are available in SharePoint Server 2016.
ReFS file system support	SharePoint Server 2016 now supports drives that are formatted with the ReFS file system.
SharePoint business intelligence	SharePoint Server 2016 now supports SQL Server 2016 CTP 3.1 and the Power Pivot add-in and Power View.
SharePoint Search	SharePoint Search Server Application has significant changes to its deployment.
Sharing improvements	SharePoint Server 2016 has many new sharing improvements available.
Site Folders view	SharePoint Server 2016 provides a new Site Folders view that lets you access the document libraries in sites that you're following.
Sites page pinning	This new feature helps you see and follow sites.
SMTP Connection Encryption	SharePoint Server 2016 supports sending email to SMTP servers that use STARTTLS connection encryption.
SMTP ports (non-default)	SharePoint Server 2016 adds support for SMTP servers that use TCP ports other than the default port (25).
Web Application Open Platform Interface Protocol (WOPI)	You can now rename files, create new files, and share files from within the WOPI iframe on the browser page.

SharePoint: Using PreSaveAction Function on SharePoint list forms

While working with SharePoint list forms especially custom list forms, where UI is not typical SharePoint UI. We do have a requirement to validate fields before form submits. PreSaveAction function allows to override functionality when Save button is clicked. PreSaveAction function executes the code written for validation on click of Save button.

function PreSaveAction(){
    var itemDue = $("input[title='Task Due Date Required Field']").val();
    var dueDate = new Date(itemDue);
    var currentDate = new Date();
if(dueDate  <= currentDate )
{
alert("Due date should be greater than current date.");
return false;
}
return true;


    }




The above code with PreSaveAction function for validation to display alerts or messages on Save button click was used.

This method is called when save button is clicked and alert messages are displayed in case of invalid input.

Issue: If you are using Custom Save button (to navigate to other pages etc after save) on custom list form, then above code will not work or to say, above mentioned PreSaveAction will not be called.
Cause: Default Save button calls PreSaveItem method, which in turn calls PreSaveAction for any validations. So when we use custom button, like below, PreSaveItem method is not called on button click.

Custom Save button - <input type="button" value="Save" name="btnSave" onclick="javascript: {ddwrt:GenFireServerEvent('__commit;__redirect={home.aspx}')}" />

Solution: Call to PreSaveItem method is to be included in onclick event of button, as shown below

Changed to - <input type="button" value="Save" name="btnSave" onclick="if (!PreSaveItem()) return false; {ddwrt:GenFireServerEvent('__commit;__redirect={home.aspx}')}" />

Highlighted code is added to custom button.

Note: If you are using "$(document).ready" in your code, make sure PreSaveAction function is written outside this block, as in above code or else PreSaveAction method will not be called.