SharePoint Federated Results

Here are some simple steps to get Federated search results to work in SharePoint 2010.  Its actually really simple, Kudos to the search team.  Note that this sets up a new Bing federated result, there is already one in there, but this walks you through setting up from scratch.

Enjoy!
Chris

Exercise 1 – Setup Federation

Purpose:         Learn to pull in outside search results (federation)
from Bing.

Result:            Federated search results

Task 1 – Configure your Search Application

1. Open SharePoint Central
   Administration
2. Click “Application
   Management”
3. Click “Manage service applications”
4. Click “My Search Application”
5. Click “Federated Locations”
6. Click “New Location”

7. For location name, type
   “Bing”
8. For display name, type “Bing”
9. For description type,
   federated results from Bing Search provider”
10. For author, type “Microsoft”
11. For version type “1.0.0.0”
12. Leave the Trigger as “Always”
• NOTE your options,
  prefix and pattern can be applied to the search keywords in deciding to
  send a query to the federated provider
13. For location type, click
    “OpenSearch 1.0/1.1”
14. For the query template, type http://www.bing.com/search?q={searchTerms}&format=rss
15. Note your ability to modify
    the formatting of the results returned from the provider
16. Note your ability to restrict
    the federated results at a site collection level
17. Note your ability to set
    credentials for the federated provider
18. Click “OK’

Task 2 – Set your Search Application

1. Open Central Administration
2. Click “Application
   Management”
3. Click “Configure service
   application associations”
4. Click “Default”
5. Check “My Search Application”
6. Click “Set as default”
7. Click “OK”

Task 2 – Test your new federation provider

1. Open your search center (http://servername:115)
2. Run a search for “SharePoint”,
   you should get no federated results
3. Click “Site settings->Edit
   Page”
4. Find the “Top federated
   results” web part
5. Click “Edit web part”

6. Select “Bing”
7. Click “OK”
8. Run a search for “SharePoint”,
   you should get back a single federated result (the top one):

9. Click “Site Actions->Edit
   Page”
• NOTE: you may have to click back to the home page, run a search
  and then click “Site Actions->Edit Page”, there seems to be an issue
  with resending the same query in Beta
10. Edit the Top Federated
    Results web part, expend “Display Properties”
11. In “Results Per Page”, set it
    to 3
12. Click “Ok”, rerun your
    search, you should now see the top 3 results: