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How to display values from custom managed properties in the hover panel in SharePoint Server 2013

  • Article

This is a blog post in the series "How to change how search results are displayed." To demonstrate how you can customize your search results, I'll use examples from an internal Microsoft Search Center.

For an overview of the blog post in this series, go to How to change the way search results are displayed in SharePoint Server 2013.

In my previous blog post, I showed you how to display values from custom managed properties with hit highlighting, and get automatically improved relevancy based on end-user click behavior. In this blog we'll learn:

 

How to decide which hover panel display template to modify

Before we do anything, let's first refresh our memories on how the different display templates are connected:

  1. Each result type contains a reference to an item display template.
  2. Each item display template contains a reference to a hover panel display template.
  3. Each item display template contains a reference to the common item display template. 
  4. Each referenced hover panel display template contains references to three common hover panel display templates.

How different display templates are connected

 

By default, the rendering of the hover panel is done by the three common hover panel display templates. The illustration below shows how the common hover panel display templates were used to render the default hover panel in my Search Center scenario.

Display templates used to render the hover panel

To make life as easy as possible for yourself when adding custom properties to your hover panel, you should leave these three common hover panel display templates as is, and instead, concentrate on the result type specific hover panel display template (highlighted in the illustration below). That’s what I did in my Search Center scenario, and it’s what I’ll show you in this blog post.

The result type specific hover panel display template

 

I completely understand if this sounds confusing, but I’ll walk you through all the steps in the next two sections. So let’s just get started!

 

How to copy an existing hover panel display template

Remember that when I created the custom item display template TechNet content, I started by copying the item display template named Item_Default.  The Item_Default display template contains a reference to the Item_Default_HoverPanel hover panel display template.  Because I copied the Item_Default display template, my TechNet content display template also contains a reference to the Item_Default_HoverPanel. 

Reference to the Item_Default_HoverPanel display template

I wanted to use the Item_Default_HoverPanel hover panel display template as a basis when adding custom properties to my hover panel, so in my mapped network drive, I copied the Item_Default_HoverPanel display template…

Copy the Item_Default_HoverPanel display template

… and gave it a new name: TechNet_Content_HoverPanel.

Renamed to TechNet_Content_HoverPanel

I only had to rename the HTML file, because the name of the associated JavaScript file was automatically updated.

In the TechNet content display template, I changed the reference in var hoverUrl so that it pointed to the newly copied and renamed TechNet_Content_HoverPanel display template.

New var hoverUrl that it points to TechNet_Content_HoverPanel border=

Now that I had created a custom hover panel display template, it was time to move on to the exciting stuff: adding custom properties.

 

How to modify a hover panel display template to show values from custom managed properties

In my Search Center scenario, the default hover panel contained almost no additional information about the search result.

Content in the default hover panel

I wanted to add the values from the following four site columns to the hover panel:

  • GUID/UUID
  • Internal Writer
  • Status
  • Submission Contact

The screenshot below shows how these values are maintained for an individual item in our internal list.

List item in internal list

When adding custom properties to a hover panel, you have to add them to the item display template (highlighted in the illustration below).

I will say this again, because this is not really intuitive: When adding custom properties to a hover panel, you have to add them to the item display template.

Result type specific item display template

 

To display custom properties in the hover panel, here’s what you should do:

  1. Find the managed property names of the site columns that you want to use. I showed you how to do this in a previous blog.
  2. Open the item display template that contains the reference to the hover panel display template that you want to customize. In the item display template, in the ManagedPropertyMapping tag, use the following syntax to add the custom managed properties that you want to display:
    '<Current item property name>':<Managed property name>'

In my scenario, I added four managed properties to the TechNet content item display template.

Properties added to item display template

  1. NOTE: You do not need to do this step if you are using SharePoint Online.
    Go to Site settings --> Search Result Types. Notice that a Property Sync alert is displayed.

Property Sync alert displayed

This alert is displayed because we have added new managed properties to an item display template (we did this in step 2). To update the result types with the newly added managed properties, choose Update.

Update managed properties

IMPORTANT! If you don't do the update, the newly added managed properties will not display in your hover panel.

  1. Open the hover panel display template that you want to modify, and use HTML to add the custom properties that you want to display.

    In my scenario, I opened the TechNet_Content_HoverPanel. The screenshot below shows how I added my four custom properties.

Four custom Properties added to hover panel display template

  1. Save the file.

By doing a new search and hovering over a search result, I saw that the four custom properties were now displayed. Nice!

Four custom properties displayed in the hover panel

However, I wasn’t quite satisfied. The values for Internal Writer and Submission Contact were displayed differently. The screenshot might not show it clearly, but hopefully you can see that the value for Internal Writer was displayed nicely, but the value for Submission Contact was very long and contained an ugly GUID.

Both these two values come from a site column of type Person or Group. The difference is that in the site column settings, Internal Writer is configured to show Name, whereas Submission Contact is configured to show Name (with presence).

Two different site column settings

 

To make Submission Contact display correctly, I copied the HP.GetAuthorsHtml method that is used by the Item_CommonHoverPanel_Body display template to display authors.

HP.GetAuthorsHtml method used in custom hover panel display template

And now the hover panel was starting to look really good.

Final hover panel rendering

But to make the hover panel even more helpful, I wanted to add an action to the bottom of the hover panel.  I’ll show you how to do this this in my next blog post.

 

Next blog post in this series
How to add a custom action to the hover panel

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Hi Varun,

    After you modified your display template, did you update your result type through the Property Sync alert?

    Bella

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Hi Henrik, I am not 100% sure, but I do believe you can use this function in a display template. Would be interesting to understand a bit more of what you are trying to achieve. Are you able to give me some more information about your scenario? Bella

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Hi Basant,

    Yes, when you edit the OOTB, you should get a Property Sync alert.

    Bella

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Hi Varun,

    I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand your scenario. Could you please explain a bit more?

    Bella

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Bella,

    You posts are spot on and very helpful. I however am finding it difficult to customize display templates with OpenSearch Results. How do you use managed Properties with OpenSearch results? I am struggling finding any help out there.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Hi Varun,

    That's great to hear :-)

    Bella

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Hi Jason,

    I'm not sure I completely understand your question, but if you create a new Result Source, you can configure it to use OpenSearch. For more information, see this TechNet article:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj683115(v=office.15).aspx

    Hope this helps,
    Bella

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Hi Chuck,

    I suggest that you contact Microsoft Support with this question.

    Bella

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Really useful. Thanks for sharing.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Hi Silky,

    To add a rating functionality, you would have to add custom code.
    I don't know of any examples I can point you to.

    Bella

  • Anonymous
    September 17, 2013
    Thank you for a helpful post for SharePoint. http://www.desertedroad.com

  • Anonymous
    November 06, 2013
    An excellent end to end guide. Thanks.

  • Anonymous
    November 06, 2013
    Glad you like it :-) Bella

  • Anonymous
    November 19, 2013
    Really..... GOOD article!! Thanks!!

  • Anonymous
    November 19, 2013
    Hi Papouuu, Happy to hear that :-) Bella

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2014
    Hi, I´m trying to use "HP.GetAuthorsHtml" in the Display Template instead of the Hover Panel to parse the user-field. But it seems that the method is only available in the Hover Panel context. Is there another method to do this in the display template? I could use RegEx but I prefer to use OOB methods. Thanks in advance // Henrik

  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2014
    Excellent article. Only thing I will add is to remember to clear your browser history to see the changes you have made!

  • Anonymous
    May 15, 2014
    Pingback from SharePoint Search | Share your knowledge

  • Anonymous
    May 22, 2014
    My Property is not returning any Value. When i checked it using C# it's returning. It's multiline large string. Can you please suggest?

  • Anonymous
    May 23, 2014
    My Managed Property is not returning any value. Although it has values as i have checked using Server object model when i bind DataGridView to Search results.
    Please advice.

    Thanks

  • Anonymous
    June 18, 2014
    Hi Bella,
    It's working now. Just had to add the property in Search Results WebPart Property List.
    Thanks a lot.

    Varun

  • Anonymous
    August 06, 2014
    Hi Bella,
    Somehow the "Item_Default" changes did not reflect any change w.r.t the way results were displayed at our end so i tried changing the PPT related html -

    I Copied and modified "Item_PowerPoint_HoverPanel" as 'Item_Modified_PowerPoint_HoverPanel" and referenced this in "item_Powerpoint".

    I added following code to "Item_Modified_PowerPoint_HoverPanel" -



    #= ctx.RenderHeader(ctx) =#

    Path: #= ctx.CurrentItem.Path =#



    Somehow the hover has disappeared altogether. What could be the reason ?
    Path is included in "item_Powerpoint" by default

    Regards,
    Vishawjeet

  • Anonymous
    September 26, 2014
    Bella,

    I am trying to modify my Item_Person hover panel to display a Work Phone number. I have added the manged property mapping call for WorkPhone and I have also added this bit of code
    if(has_wkph == true) {
    _#-->


    Extension: #= displayWkPh =#

    I added the mapping and the call to both the Item_Person, and Item_Person_HoverPanel templates. I just get the result in the hover panel "We weren't able to find additional Information" . I am unsure what I am missing to get this information to display. Also this is a SharePoint Online environment.

    Thank you in advance!

  • Anonymous
    October 20, 2014
    Hi Bella,

    I must appreciate the effort you put in your articles. Its very good and easy to understand.

    However could you please let me know if we can add rating feature(star), commenting as well as 'like' functionality(similiar to the one that we had in facebook) in the custom action of Hover Panel.

    Regards,
    Silky

  • Anonymous
    November 18, 2014
    Hi Bella
    I found this article really useful.. Thanks for sharing.

  • Anonymous
    December 04, 2014
    Hi Bella,

    I have a one quick question for you. If I am using OOB properties like RefinableString00 and using the same property in my Item_commonItem_body template. Will I get the Property Sync? will this value is Accessible in this template?

    Thanks
    Basant
    http://sharepointfordeveloper.blogspot.in/