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.

Download Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta

With Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010, your people get a wide range of powerful new ways to do their best work from more places – whether they’re using a PC, smartphone or web browser.

From insightful updates to Excel, PowerPoint, Word and Outlook, to new server integration capabilities that make it easier for everyone to track, report and share vital information, Office Professional Plus 2010 offers the complete package through familiar, intuitive tools.

See Microsoft Office 2010 for yourself

We are inviting you to work with Office Professional Plus 2010 on your secondary PCs in order to help ensure smooth adoption when the final product is available and gather feedback from real world settings.

Here’s what you need to know:

This is pre-release software, so please read the following to get an idea of the risks and key things you need to know before you try the Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta.

Protect your PC and data. Be sure to back up your data and please don’t test Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta on your primary home or business PC.

Uninstall any previous versions of Microsoft Office. We highly recommend that previous versions of Microsoft Office be removed from your test machine before installing Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta.

Technical details/updates. Before installing the Beta please read the Release Notes.

Keep up with the news. You can keep up with general technical information and news by participating in the Microsoft Office 2010 Forum (on TechNet) and reading the Microsoft Office 2010 Team Blog.

Keep your PC updated. Be sure to turn on automatic updates in Windows Update in case we publish updates for the Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta.

Microsoft Partners. Learn more about Office Professional Plus 2010 on the Microsoft Partner Portal.

Here’s what you need to have*:

Internet access. Internet access (to download Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta and get updates)

A PC with these minimum recommended specifications:

• 500 MHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor or higher
• 256 MB of system memory or more
• 3.5 GB of available disk space
• 1024x768 or higher resolution monitor
• DVD-R/W Drive

Supported Operating Systems:

• Windows XP with Service Pack (SP) 3 (32-bit)
• Windows Vista with SP1 (32-bit or 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2003 R2 (32-bit or 64-bit) with MSXLM 6.0 installed
• Windows Server 2008 with SP2 (32-bit or 64-bit)
• Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit)
• Terminal Server and windows on Windows (WOW) (which allows installing 32-bit versions of Office 2010 on 64-bit operating systems) are supported.

*Please note these specifications could change.

Get the download

After registering, you will be able to select the version (we recommend 32-bit which runs great on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows) and your software language. Downloading the Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta could take an hour or more. The exact time will depend on your provider, bandwidth, and traffic. The good news is that once you start the download, you won't have to answer any more questions – you can walk away while it finishes. If your download gets interrupted, it will restart where it left off. Once the download is complete, launch the downloaded file and follow the set up instructions.

Once the download is complete, launch the downloaded file and follow the set up instructions.

Important changes in product activation

We’ve made some important changes to how Microsoft Office products are activated.  The new activation method is based on the Software Protection Platform first introduced in Windows Vista and currently used in Windows 7. Please take note of the information provided on the Product Key page that displays during the download process. Follow the instructions on that page for activating your beta software immediately after the setup procedure completes. For more information please see the Release Notes.

Download Here

Microsoft Office 2010: Why do you need it

When Microsoft releases Office 2010 later this year, will it be an upgrade worth pursuing, or will it, like Office 2007, be one that you can easily let pass? That's a question that's no doubt on the minds of many existing Office users - as well as more than a few executives at Microsoft.


Office 2010 can easily be seen as analogous to Windows 7 in that it represents Microsoft's latest chance to convince people that they've really been listening to their concerns.

Like Windows Vista, Office 2007 was an upgrade that relatively few bothered to adopt. Office 2010, like Windows 7, is a do-over. Microsoft, in fact, took a page from the lengthy Windows 7 beta programme when, last year, it made the beta of Office 2010 widely available to the public.

Here’s looking into why you should go for an upgrade

Ribbon bar everywhere


The 'ribbon bar' was Office 2007's most controversial feature -- and one that dissuaded many from upgrading to Office 2007. The ribbon bar did away with conventional menus in favour of a tabbed, context- specific top row that grouped functions likely to be needed or wanted. The idea was to unearth the many features of Office applications that many never found because those features were buried deep within menus or dialog boxes.

Menu addicts will be disappointed to hear that not only has the ribbon bar not disappeared in Office 2010, it has been enhanced. You'll now have the ability to customise the ribbon bar by adding the tabs that you think should appear, and you can add or remove functions or features within tabs.

You'll also find the ribbon bar throughout Office 2010. In Office 2007, the ribbon bar was missing from Outlook and OneNote, Microsoft's note-taking and information management tool. There's still no option to bring back classic menus, but the improvements will be welcome to those who don't mind the change.

Outlook


The e-mail application Outlook is probably the suite's most-used application. Microsoft has managed to introduce fairly dramatic changes to Outlook 2010 without making the programme a drag on productivity.

Most of the essential features remain intact and are located where you'd expect them to be. The many interface enhancements focus on making Outlook feel lighter weight and more responsive. At the same time, users will be able to customise to a level never before possible with Outlook.

It's easy, for example, to hide the ribbon bar, folders, and other interface elements of Outlook 2010, retaining just the message list and preview pane. Bringing back interface elements you've hidden is simple ... just click an unobtrusive left or right arrow icon along the top edges.

General improvements

The round Office button that appeared on ribbon-enabled applications in Office 2007 has been replaced by a tab labeled File at the far left of the ribbon bar.

Click it, and you'll see a new feature that Microsoft calls Backstage View. Occupying the entire application window, Backstage View gathers together all of the operations you're likely to need when readying a file for distribution, including 'checking for issues' (spelling and grammar checking), establishing read and write permissions, turning on change tracking, and previewing how the file will appear when it's printed.

The traditional Save, Save As, Share, and other file-related activities are also included. Clicking the File tab again takes you back to the open document.

Paste Preview


Paste Preview is another suite-wide enhancement that attempts to address the fact that many people undo a paste operation once they see how the text or object actually looks in the document.

As its name implies, Paste Preview gives you a preliminary look at how something pasted from the clipboard will appear. To use Paste Preview, you'll first right-click and let your mouse hover over the Paste Preview options, seeing in real-time how the material will look.

A new Insert Screen Shot feature enables quick and easy screen captures to be pasted into the existing document. This will be a handy time-saving tool for those who frequently need to send or use sample screens during their daily work.

For those who work with images, Office 2010's background removal tool does a fair job of detecting and automatically removing background colours, allowing the background colour of the document itself to take its place.

Office Web
One of Office 2010's most anticipated new features, Office Web, has yet to be officially unwrapped. Office Web will be Microsoft's answer to Google Docs and other cloud-based office suites that allow you to work on browser-based word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation programs.

Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote will all be offered in the Office Web suite. And they will be free. The 'free' business model no doubt presents a problem for Microsoft, which generates significant revenue from its traditional Office suite. Microsoft's answer with Office Web is to provide pared-down versions of its primary Office applications for free to Windows Live users.

The strategy could very well pay off, since it leverages the huge installed base of Office users - both at home and in corporations - and ensures these users full compatibility with existing documents while withholding enough of the functionality of the full products to make maintaining licenses appealing.

Verdict


If you're still using Office 2003, you'll still face a considerable learning curve when moving to the 2010 version of Office.

The fact that you cannot bring back classic menus will mean that you'll have to spend some time learning how Microsoft has chosen to structure the many features of each application. If you've memorised keyboard shortcuts from Office 2003 - for example, Alt-T, O for bringing up the Options panel - you'll be happy to know, however, that the same keyboard combinations bring up those familiar features.

Those moving from Office 2007 will likely appreciate the improvements to the ribbon bar, the Backstage View, and the overall aesthetic improvements, as well as the lightweight feel of each Office 2010 application.

In terms of features, though, we're still talking about relatively incremental improvements in what was already, as of Office 2003, a mature suite. The most innovative changes occur with Office Web - and for that, you won't need to shell out any money at all.

Download the Office 2010 beta from http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010