In this post we will take a look at two different ways to remove search results in classic and modern SharePoint.
Introduction
There may be occasions in SharePoint where you are required to remove an item, or items from the search results. When we are talking about search results, we are referring to the items that are returned when a user initiates a search in SharePoint.
Search results in modern SharePoint.
Click on one of the buttons below to find out more about how you can remove search results in both classic and modern SharePoint:
This post describes an issue when trying to view classic publishing pages in SharePoint Online and how to resolve.
The issue
After migrating publishing sites from SharePoint 2010 – SharePoint Online, I encountered an issue with classic SharePoint Server publishing pages. Post-migration, some publishing pages wouldn’t open and displayed this error message:
Now another issue with this was that quite often the publishing pages affected were the migrated sites’ homepage – rendering the whole site inoperable! Microsoft have an article on the issue here and state that the cause is that “The .aspx page is using an invalid page layout, or the current layout is corrupt”.
Resolution
The Microsoft documentation on how to resolve this is pretty good, but I found it didn’t quite get me to fix my issue. Here’s what I did:
Navigate to Site Content & Structure: /_layouts/sitemanager.aspx. NOTE: You need to be a SharePoint admin to access
Open the Pages library > find your broken page > click on the drop-down button and pressedit page settings
Select the (Welcome Page) Blank Web Part Page layout
Press OK
When I had to do this for my broken pages, there was a warning message above the page layout that said “Current page layout is not valid. Please select a valid page layout from the drop down list below”. I just selected the (Welcome Page) Blank Web Part Page layout anyway, pressed OK and it worked.
In this post we describe an issue observed within a SharePoint 2010 environment where files could not be uploaded or edited and users received a “nonexistent file or folder” message, plus explain how to resolve.
The problem
Reports started coming in from users that when they tried to upload files or edit properties within a single site collection they received the following error message:
The URL is invalid. It may refer to a nonexistent file or folder, or refer to a valid file or folder that is not in the current Web.
Over the course of a couple of days, the changed and instead of seeing the above error the window would just hang when uploading files/ editing properties and users would see a “processing” message:
Processing message appears and does nothing when users upload files/ edit properties.
In this example, there is one, very large document library that was most affected by this issue within the site collection. So the first thing I did was take a look at the files with no checked in version within the document library settings.
I found that there was close to 1000 files with no checked in version. When trying to open the checked out files page it took an age until finally opening. I was unable to take ownership of all of the files and check them in, but this didn’t make any difference to the issue.
We have set up nightly IIS resets on our web front end servers so overnight this took place in the hopes restarting the web services might help, but this also didn’t fix anything.
The solution
After the IIS reset, I began looking into the SQL server too see if space was the issue. Sure enough I found that one of the drives that hosted the content database related to the site collection in question had less than 10MB free space!
So for us the solution was a simple one, we increased the space on the full drive and the issue went away. Users are once again able to upload files/ edit properties within the site collection.
Other common suggested fixes to try
In writing this post, I researched many of the other suggested fixes for this issue – so here’s a list:
Recycle the application pools/ perform IIS resets on the SharePoint sites as required
Check the application pool username/ password has not expired
Ensure the database server has enough free space (1GB minimum)
This post describes how to update the site logo in a classic SharePoint publishing site, plus how it differs from updating the site logo and thumbnail in modern SharePoint sites.
In older versions of SharePoint Server, such as SharePoint 2010 or 2013, you are able to update the site logo of any site or site collection by opening up the site settings and accessing the title, description and icon settings under look and feel.
I recently migrated a SharePoint Server publishing site into SharePoint Online using the copy structure and content option within ShareGate Desktop. Aside from the migration being bloody brilliant (seriously, everything copies across and works the same! more on this in another post), one thing that didn’t work was the site logo.
Copy structure and content in ShareGate Desktop.
The migrated SharePoint site with broken site logo.
How to update the site logo for classic SharePoint publishing sites in SharePoint Online
So in my earlier example, I’d just migrated a publishing site into SharePoint Online and noticed that the site logo was broken and affecting some of the navigation links of the homepage.
This Microsoft article makes mention of how to change the logo, title and description of your SharePoint site. The article also states that if you don’t see this option, it may be that you don’t have permission to see it – well I’m the primary administrator of said SharePoint site so that isn’t the issue!
I figured out a way around it thanks to trusty old SharePoint URLs. Below is how I got to the page, but if you just want to go straight there just add _layouts/15/prjsetng.aspx to the end of your site URL.
Open your SharePoint Online site
Add _layouts/sitemanager.aspx to the end of your URL
Click on the drop-down icon next to your site collection name > Press General Settings
This is the title, description and logo page as described in the Microsoft article previously. From here you can upload your site logo and save it to update your classic publishing site. It’s also worth noting that once you update the site logo from this location, it will also be visible within the modern elements of your classic publishing site (for example Documents).
How to update the site logo in SharePoint Server
For SharePoint Server, follow the steps below to update the site logo:
Before you begin đĄ
Make sure you have saved your site logo in a location that is accessible to all users of your site.
Within your site or site collection > Press site actions > site settings
Under Look and Feel > Press Title, description and icon
Under Logo URL and Description > enter the URL path of your site logo
Press OK
How to update the site logo in modern SharePoint sites
With modern SharePoint sites it is really easy to change the site logo. There are two types of site logo you can change:
Site logo thumbnail – appears in search, on the site card and where ever else a square logo is needed. Recommended size is 48 x 48px
Site logo – appears in the site header, which can be transparent or non-transparent. Recommended size is 64 x 64px
Add a new site logo
Navigate to the modern SharePoint site you wish to add a site logo to
Press the cog icon âď¸ > Press change the look
Within change the look > Press Header
Scroll down until you see site logo thumbnail and site logo
Press Change on either the site logo thumbnail or the site logo
Select a relevant site logo from your computer and press open
Press Save
If you want to remove a site logo, just open the header > scroll down to the logos and press Remove đď¸.
This post is to serve as a reference point for all the useful shortcut URLs in SharePoint that help admins and super users get their jobs done much easier.
There are several blog posts by others with these URLs in them, but I wanted to preserve them in my own blog for future generations! Most of these links have come from SharePoint 2010, so if you want them to work in differing versions just add a 14, 15 or 16 after the layouts folder to work in 2010, 2013, 2016 or SharePoint Online.
In this post we will look at how you can add, edit or remove best bet keywords in classic SharePoint and how to do the same with promoted results in modern SharePoint.
In classic SharePoint you are able to highlight search results you wish to make more prominent by using keywords and best bets. Best bets appear at the top of the search results page with a yellow star â next to them.
Best bets will appear at the top of the search results page in classic SharePoint.
Keywords and best bets are all managed centrally via the Search keywords under Site Collection Administration section within your top-level site.
How to add keywords in classic SharePoint
A keyword is a definition for common terms or phrases that are used within an organisation. Keywords are what search queries will match to return a keyword result. Before you get started, you must have Site Collection Administrator permissions to manage keywords.
Click the Site Actions menu, choose Site Settings
On the Site Settings page, in the Site Collection Administration section, click Search keywords
On the Manage Keywords page, click Add Keyword
Add Keyword from the Manage Keywords page in classic SharePoint.
Enter the following information for each keyword you create:
Keyword phrase: what the search queries will match to return a keyword result
Synonyms: additional words that users might type when searching for the keyword, separated by semicolons. Synonyms must be shorter or equal to 100 characters
Best bets: the recommended results for the keyword. Best bets will appear in the order listed
Keyword definition: optional text that will appear with the keyword (optional)
Contact: the person to inform when the keyword is past its review date (optional)
Start date: the date you want this keyword to appear in search results
End date: the date you want this keyword to no longer appear in search results (optional, leave blank for no expiry)
Review date: the date you want this keyword to be reviewed by the contact (optional)
How to add a keyword best bet in classic SharePoint.
How to edit/ delete keywords in classic SharePoint
Click the Site Actions menu, choose Site Settings
On the Site Settings page, in the Site Collection Administration section, click Search keywords
Click on the keyword you wish to edit and press Edit. When editing a keyword you are able to update all of the information listed above, plus:
Add additional best bets
Change the properties of a best bet
Change the order of best bets by updating the number of the Title next to the best bet
How to edit keywords in classic SharePoint.
How to delete keywords in classic SharePoint
Click the Site Actions menu, choose Site Settings
On the Site Settings page, in the Site Collection Administration section, click Search keywords
Click on the keyword you wish to delete and press Delete
How to delete keywords in classic SharePoint.
Modern SharePoint
Promoted results
Although a lot has changed with the advent of the modern search experience in SharePoint, you can still create and configure keywords and best bets – now called Promoted Results! Microsoft have published comprehensive guidance on how to manage query rules and add promoted results here, but summarise the steps myself below.
How to add promoted results in modern SharePoint
First you will need to consider whether you want your promoted results to appear across the tenant, a site collection or site within SharePoint before beginning. In this example I am creating a tenant-wide promoted result.
Navigate to the SharePoint admin center > More features > Search. Press Open
Within the search administration page, select Manage Query Rules
Open Manage Query Rules from within the SharePoint admin center.
On the Manage Query Rules page, select a result source for the new query rule (you can change this later)
Select New Query Rule. The new query rule has the following configuration options:
Rule name: enter the name for the new query rule
Context: restrict the rule to queries performed on a particular result source, from a particular category of topic page, or by a user matching a particular user segment
Query Conditions: define when a user’s search box query makes this rule fire. You can specify multiple conditions of different types, or remove all conditions to fire for any query text. Every query condition becomes false if the query is not a simple keyword query, such as if it has quotes, property filters, parentheses, or special operators
Actions: actions can add promoted results above the ranked results, add blocks of additional results promoted to always appear above ranked results or ranked so they only appear if highly relevant, or change ranked results, such as tuning their ordering
Publishing: make the query rule active during a particular time period
Add all the relevant information, then under Actions press Add Promoted Result
Add a Title, URL and Description for your promoted results
Make sure Render the URL as a banner instead of as a hyperlink is checked
Press Save
Create a new Query Rule and Promoted Result in modern SharePoint.
Now, when you search across Microsoft 365, you will be able to see your promoted result!
The newly created promoted result shows across Microsoft 365 search.
How to edit or delete promoted results in modern SharePoint
You can manage your query rules and promoted results through the Manage Query Rules page much like creating a new rule. To edit or delete a query rule/ promoted result:
Navigate to the SharePoint admin center > More features > Search. Press Open
Within the search administration page, select Manage Query Rules
Select the result source for the query rule you wish to edit
Click on the drop-down arrow next to the name of the query rule you want to change. From here you can:
View, edit, copy, delete or make the query rule inactive
If you are deleting a rule, once you press Delete you will be prompted with a message to confirm you want to delete the query rule. Press OK
(this post was written using a SharePoint 2010 environment)
A while ago I was trying to find a way of getting a list of all user profiles that didn’t have a profile picture uploaded. I searched around online a bit and could only find examples that involved writing PowerShell which I thought was way to complicated a thing to do!
So this post will show how you can easily export user profile data from SharePoint, apply some excel filters to find all users without a profile picture.
This method applies to all on-premises versions of SharePoint, but also will work for SharePoint Online.
Get user profile data
To get started, open the Excel desktop app
Press Get Data > From Other Sources > SharePoint List
Enter the root site collection URL for your SharePoint environment
Press OK
Press the From SharePoint List option within Get Data in Excel.Enter your root site collection URL here.
This will open a navigator window, which will display all the available lists within the root site collection.
Scroll down until you find the UserInformationList
Click on it and a preview will load, scroll across the preview and make sure you can see the Picture column
Press Load
Make sure you select the UserInformationList and that the Picture column is visible.
NOTE: at first I was using the Get Data > From Web option but that only brought back the first 30 rows from the UserInformationList.
I didnât want to increase the view limit as there are thousands of rows to display but I found that the way described doesnât have that issue.
Now this will take a little while to download all the rows if you have a fair few users, but you’ll see when its finished in the right-hand Queries and Connections pane as it shows you the number of rows downloaded once complete.
Filter your data
The first thing to note about this data is that it does also contain some stuff you wont need. With my list data I noted that I had SharePoint security and domain groups, service accounts and other general use/ non-user accounts listed. Here are some of the filters and logic I applied:
Filter the Picture column to only show blanks
Filter the Content Type column to only show Person
Or filter the ContentTypeID to only show the corresponding Person content type ID
Filter SIPAddress to only show rows with an organisational email address
That’s all there is to it, a pretty quick and super easy way to get a list of all user profiles without a picture đ
Recently I came across an issue with a SharePoint 2010 publishing site. The site had a page on it that was being edited and after a series of web parts were added, crashed and would no longer load. An additional issue here was that there wasn’t another, recent version of the page to restore to.
So, in the steps below detail how I was able to access the page using web part maintenance mode and delete the problem web part:
Navigate to the problem page’s URL
At the end of the URL add ?contents=1
This will then open the problem page up in web part maintenance mode. From here you are able to close, restore defaults or delete web parts from your page
NOTE: make sure you page is checked out before trying this else you won’t be able to make any changes.
Select the web part(s) which you think are causing the issue
Now select to either close, reset or delete the web part. I chose delete
A warning message will appear > press OK
Modern SharePoint
When writing this post I wondered if this method of accessing web part maintenance mode still worked for modern SharePoint – the answer was no! When you try to open a modern page using ?contents=1 you get this:
Opening modern SharePoint pages in classic maintenance mode won’t work.
However, after reading this handy article from Microsoft about maintenance for client-side web parts in SharePoint Online I just switched my query to ?maintenancemode=true and it worked!
Modern web parts have there own query to append to the page URL to access maintenance mode.
Different to the classic example, modern web parts when in maintenance mode show summary, manifest and data tabs with information about each web part.
If you wish to delete a web part from this view you will need to edit the page and delete it from there, then republish like in the example below:
Deleting web parts in maintenance mode within a modern SharePoint page.
SharePoint URL’s
There are loads of URL’s that either I can never remember or haven’t come across that are listed here. However I wanted to keep a list of them on my site just for reference:
(this post was written using a SharePoint 2010 environment)
This post details the steps involved in delegating or reassigning a workflow task to another person as part of a workflow process.
My organisation has several approval workflows in action within our SharePoint 2010 environment, but one request I get all the time is to change who the approval has been sent to.
Approval tasks can be assigned as part of a workflow process, built via SharePoint designer or Nintex workflows. Once assigned, notification message(s) are sent to the approver and can either be approved via the Workflow Tasks section of a current item or via lazy approval if you have Nintex.
As this can be done with both regular SharePoint designer workflows and Nintex workflows, I’ll detail the steps below on how to switch the approver for both types of workflows.
Reassign a workflow task in SharePoint Designer workflows
In this example I have the following components configured:
A custom list with two columns: Title, Assigned To
A SharePoint Designer workflow that starts an approval process action on the current item and sets the approver as the person listed in Assigned To
Approval tasks are created within the workflows associated task list
An example SharePoint Designer workflow that uses the “Start Approval Process” task action on the current item and sets the approver as the person selected in the current item’s Assigned To field.
The steps below will demonstrate how to reassign an approver inside a workflow task:
Open your main list (in my example the custom list)
Either click on the status of your workflow for the current item (if column is displayed), or highlight the current item > under List Tools > Items > Press Workflows
NOTE: In some cases, the site owners or SharePoint admins may have hidden the workflow status column that gets created when you publish your workflow. If you can’t see this column, donât worry just follow the other method described above.
If you press the Workflows button > left-click on the name of your running workflow(If you pressed the workflow status from the previous step, ignore this step)
Press the name of your running workflow to access the workflow tasks.
Under Tasks > click on the drop-down icon next to the title or your task > Press Edit Item
Press Edit Item by opening the drop-down menu next to the title of the workflow task.
A new pop-up window will open, at this point you will see the properties of the workflow task which includes:
Status – the status of the current workflow task (not started, approved, rejected)
Consolidated comments – Comments of the requester and all previous participants
Due date – the date set for workflow tasks to be completed by
Comments – allows the approver to enter any comments about why the item was approved or rejected
The workflow tasks pop-up window.
There will be four grey buttons at the bottom of the window > Press Reassign Task
Press the reassign task button.
In Reassign Task To > select the person you wish to reassign the task to and press Send
Delegate workflow tasks in Nintex workflows
In this example I have the following components configured:
A custom list with several columns, but namely: Title, Approver
Nintex Workflow 2010 version (2.3.10.0)
A Nintex workflow that uses a flexi task action to send an approval request task to the approver as the person listed in Approver column from the custom list
Approval tasks are created within the workflows associated task list
Flexi task to send approval to the person set in the current items Approver field.
The steps below will demonstrate how to delegate an approver inside a workflow task:
Open your main list (in my example the custom list)
Highlight the current item > under List Tools > Items > Press Workflows
Left-click on the name of your running workflow
Under Tasks > click on the drop-down icon next to the title or your task > Press Edit Item
Press Edit Item by opening the drop-down menu next to the title of the workflow task.
A new pop-up window will open, at this point you will see the properties of the workflow task which includes:
Outcome – the status of the approval task (approved or rejected) or delegate the task to another person
Comment – allows the approver to enter any comments about why the item was approved or rejected
Item Properties – a view of some of the list item properties for the current item associated with the workflow task
Within the workflow task, press delegate this task to change the approver.
Press delegate this task. At this point the pop-up window will change to display the following fields:
Delegate – this is used to specify the user to assign the selected task to
Comments – this is used to provide instructions or additional information to the user the task is being delegated to
To delegate to a new approver, click on the address book icon on the right to select a user from the Select People or Group dialog box
Add any additional comments in the Comments field. This text is appended to the ‘Approval Required’ notification that is sent to the delegated user.
Use the address book within the delegate field to assign the task to another approver.
On July 6, Microsoft announced that they will be retiring SharePoint 2010 workflows from November 1, 2020. I decided when reading the news that I would hold fire on writing something just to let the dust settle a little bit.
So after being inspired by John Liu’s blog post, I’ve decided to keep my own rolling list of resources to help myself and hopefully others transition from SharePoint 2010 workflows to Power Automate.
Microsoft had stated in 2016 that support would continue for SharePoint 2010 workflows until 2026, but with this month’s announced they specified that:
– Starting August 1st, 2020, SharePoint 2010 workflows will be turned off for newly created tenants.
– Starting November 1st, 2020, Microsoft will begin to remove the ability to run or create SharePoint 2010 workflows from existing tenants.
This applies to both out-the-box and custom SharePoint 2010 workflows, but only in Microsoft 365. If you are still on premises this does not apply to you as they are still being supported until 2026 at the time of writing, but I imagine you have your own issues to deal with!
For SharePoint 2013 workflows, Microsoft announced they will remain supported, but depreciated. So that means that SharePoint 2013 workflows will be turned off by default for new tenants starting in November 2020, but Microsoft will provide a PowerShell script to activate the workflow engine.
What does this mean?
Unless Microsoft has a change of heart, what this means is that over the next 4 months all SharePoint 2010 workflows will need to be re-developed using Power Automate, Nintex or any other another third-party workflow solution.
Microsoft offer a modernization scanner that (amongst other things), will understand where “classic” workflow is being used and sort of grade them based on number of actions and complexity. However, this scanner only works for SharePoint Online, so if you’ve yet to migrate to Microsoft 365 you will need to use another assessment/ inventory tool to get this sort of information about your SharePoint 2010 workflows.
What I’m going to do
So for myself, my organisation has several SharePoint 2010 and Nintex workflows on premise that have yet to be migrated to Microsoft 365 and are largely still in use.
As part of discovery work conducted previously, I’ve used a combination of ShareGates site report to get the high level information about my sites(s), the SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool to get information about my SharePoint workflows and a PowerShell script to get similar information about the Nintex workflows.
Even with a complete list of SharePoint 2010 workflows, there is still some documented pain points that will require some thought to overcome – this won’t be a straight copy/ paste into Power Automate đ
However, with that said the plan is essentially the same as before; assess the active workflows, consolidate where possible and re-build the SharePoint workflows in Power Automate – only in a much shorter time frame…
Resource list
I will keep updating this list as I see new articles, or information from Microsoft and others.
SharePoint Stuff 
