SharePoint 2013 Search not finding Site Column when creating a Custom Managed Property Mapping

Question

I have created a Site Column, "About Customer" (Text). I am trying to create a Custom Managed Property but when I click to Add a mapping, My custom site column can not be found, no matter what I search for. Here is what I have tried so far:

• Added the column to a list and populated it with sample data
• Reset the search index then ran a full crawl
• Checked the Search Logs to verify that the List has been crawled

Does anyone know how to resolve this?

Answer 1

Search for your Crawled Property and make note of the Data Type. (Also in SharePoint 2013 if you used a Site Column you may see your column twice, once for the crawl and once for the automatically created crawled and managed property pair.)

When you create your Managed Property, before you click "Add Mapping", ensure that you have selected the right data type for your Managed Property to match your Crawled Property.

Answer 2

Mine did not show up until I had actually used the column in my document library. So if my column was "Type of Document," I set one file to "Report," did a crawl and it then showed up.

Answer 3

When you add the mapping for the new property make sure you check the box for Searchable.

Edit: AND Retrievable.