Managed MetaData Columns in FASTSearch

Question

I have a FAST Search site collection and, in results.aspx, I'm trying to configure the 'Refinement Panel' web part so it displays my custom taxonomy which I've created in Managed MetaData service. If I edit this web part I can see in the "Filter Category Definition" the line:

<Category
    Title="Managed Metadata Columns"
    Description="Managed metadata of the documents"
    Type="Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.WebControls.TaxonomyFilterGenerator...>

So I guess the question is how to I go about refining the list of "Managed Metadata Columns". The weird thing is, depending on what I search for, the occasional custom metadata field does appear. But why does just that one term appear and not the rest? My documents in the search results have plenty of metadata values associated to it so that shouldn't be an issue.

I'm doing all this from the SP2010 Contoso virtual, Beta 2.

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

First of all you need to make sure that you have created a managed property from your crawled property. In addition make sure that it is also set up as a 'Refiner Property' as well in the managed property creation screen.

Then do the following:

1. Go the search results page and edit the refiner web part
2. Make sure that the 'Use Default Configuration' check box in NOT checked
3. Edit the "Filter Category Definition" XML section

4. Add or replace your field similar to what is below, make sure that the MappedProperty corresponds to your managed property name

   Description="Product names"
   Type="Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.WebControls.TaxonomyFilterGenerator"
   MetadataThreshold="1" NumberOfFiltersToDisplay="4" MaxNumberOfFilters="20"
   ShowMoreLink="True"
   MappedProperty="myProperty"
   MoreLinkText="show more" LessLinkText="show fewer" ShowCounts="Count" />

If you are using non Managed Metadata field then use the Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.WebControls.ManagedPropertyFilterGenerator class for the type value.

Hope that this helps :)

Answer 2

For some reason the xml wasn't copied in last reply. Let me try copy it again. Category Title="Fruit" Description="Managed metadata of the documents" Type="Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.WebControls.TaxonomyFilterGenerator" MetadataThreshold="3" NumberOfFiltersToDisplay="2" MaxNumberOfFilters="20" ShowMoreLink="True" MappedProperty="ows_MetadataFacetInfo" MoreLinkText="show more" LessLinkText="show fewer"

Answer 3

Actually the TaxonomyFilterGenerator works different. All managed metadata fields are automatically crawled and have managed properties created. You won't need to manually create it. The correct way to construct a specific managed metadata field in "Filter Category Definition" XML is as follows (assume your field name is "Fruit"):

<Category    
Title="Fruit"
Description="Managed metadata of the documents"
Type="Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.WebControls.TaxonomyFilterGenerator"
MetadataThreshold="3"
NumberOfFiltersToDisplay="2"
MaxNumberOfFilters="20"
ShowMoreLink="True"
MappedProperty="ows_MetadataFacetInfo"
MoreLinkText="show more"
LessLinkText="show fewer" />

Note, the crawled property name is "ows_MetadataFacetInfoText(Text)" which is mapped to "owsmetadatafacetinfo".