Querying SharePoint search for all departments with REST API

Question

I currently have an ajax request set up in my javascript to call the search API but this only gives me departments matching whatever I input for query:

$.ajax(
    {
         url: _spPageContextInfo.webAbsoluteUrl + "/_api/search/query?querytext='Department:"
         + query
         + "*'&selectproperties='Department'&sourceid='<removed>'&sortlist='Department:ascending'",
         method: "GET",
         headers: {
             "accept": "application/xml",
         },
             success: onSuccess,
             error: onError
    }
);

How can I query search so that I get ALL departments back? I can do the filtering for distinct departments once I get the data back, but I don't want to search for a particular department. I want all of them.

Answer 1

Assuming that you tried Department:* and that did not work, you could try to search by content type. If Department is a site column, you could request all items that have the Content Type that contains that column.

Answer 2

That query won't work because you're querying all items that HAVE a department. If you just want the department, get it from the Managed metadata service. User departments, job titles, and location are synchronized from AD and pumped into the mms app > People > Department.

Answer 3

You're searching for a specific Department in your Query. This works for me:

/_api/search/query?querytext='*'&selectproperties='Department'&sourceid='B09A7990-05EA-4AF9-81EF-EDFAB16C4E31'&rowlimit=100