Use the same Managed Property on the tenant, reset Site Collection Managed Property

Question

On a SharePoint Online I have this mapping of Managed Properties in the Search Schema:

• Site Collection A : RefinableString10 -> ows_BuildingNumber

• Site Collection B : RefinableString10 -> ows_EquipmentNumber

• Site Collection C : RefinableString10 -> ows_BuildingNumber

In order to consolidate across the Site Collections, I plan to map RefinableString10 to ows_BuildingNumber on the Tenant level, and remove the mapping on the individual Site Collections.

Had I used a new RefinableString, like RefinableString20, the mapping on the Tenant level percolates to the Site Collections, however it seems like once a managed property has been used on the Site Collection level it will no longer receive the mapping from the Tenant level? I have tried running Mikael Svensons "Force full crawl on SPO" script, but it does not seems to resolve the issue.

Answer 1

Once modified at the site collection level the managed property becomes detached. To remove this detached state you need to export the search schema from the site collection and modify the XML.

There is a section named Overrides where the RefinableProperty (which will appear beginning with a key of 1 followed by many 0's then your refinable property number) will have an XML element named d3p1:MappingsOverridden. This needs to be swapped to false, saved, then imported back into the site.