Shehan Peruma

Exclude task items from appearing in search results

I had a request to exclude items contained in the approval tasks list from appearing in SharePoint's search results. At first glance it could be as simple as making changes to the lists properties (List Settings -> Advanced Settings) to explicitly exclude it from appearing in search results. This would work if you only had a few lists to update, but lets say, that like me, you had well over 100 lists to update....You could develop a utility that makes use of SharePoint's API to update the list, but that would work only for existing approval lists and not ones created later on.

The approach I used is a simple and one-off task - I update the search scope by adding an exclusion rule.

To do this:

1. Open up the Search Settings / Search Administration page
2. Open up the Scopes page and place the mouse pointer over the scope that needs to be updated. A dropdown menu will appear; select Edit Properties and Rules
3. In the scope properties screen, click New Rule
4. In the add scope rule page:
1. Scope Rule Type: Property Query
2. Property Query: contentclass = STS_ListItem_Tasks
3. Behavior: Exclude
4. Click OK
5. Return to the Search Settings page and click 'Start update now' under the scopes section

Print | posted on Thursday, May 21, 2009 1:30 AM | Filed Under [ Search ]