Set up Microsoft Search

Microsoft Search provides a user-friendly interface to help users find information like files and documents, internal sites and business tools, people and groups, locations and directions, conversations and answers. It does this by securely accessing all data sources, including emails, files, SharePoint files, OneDrive content, and other shared resources as well. With Microsoft Search in Bing you can get search results from the internet as well.

To learn more about Microsoft Search features, see Microsoft Search Overview.

Get Started

Microsoft Search is turned on by default for all Microsoft apps that supports it, as a part of Microsoft 365. There is no setup required, but you can improve the overall Microsoft Search experience through some basic administrative tasks.

You manage Microsoft Search from Microsoft 365 admin center.

  1. In Microsoft 365 admin center, go to Settings > Search & intelligence.

As an admin you should consider a few things that can make the Microsoft Search experience efficient and user friendly in your organization.

Step 1: Assign Search admin and Search editor

In Microsoft Search, you can manage your organization’s search settings and content by assigning these roles to users:

  1. Search admin: This role can create and manage search result content and define query settings for improved search results within the organization. Search admin manages the Microsoft Search configuration and can perform all of the content-management tasks a Search editor can.
  2. Search editor: Creates, manages, and deletes content for Microsoft Search in the Microsoft 365 admin center. This role can create and manage editorial content, such as frequently asked questions and answers, important places and locations, frequently searched and used sites and apps.

Currently, the Search admin and Search editor roles must be assigned by a global admin. For more information, see Assign admin roles.

Search administrators directly influence the search experience for end users. This includes choosing the types of results you want to surface to your users. It may be difficult for one person to choose and create authoritative content on many different topics that users search for in an organization. We recommend that you leverage the expertise and knowledge of subject matter experts (SME) and other users by adding them as Search editors.

Step 2: Create answers

Microsoft Search provides administrators with tools that they can use to build a robust search experience for their users. You can curate answers of different types to provide high-confidence results for users' searches.

Bookmarks are the most commonly used answer type. They promote the best possible results for your users’ queries to the top of the search results and make it easy for your users to find what they are looking for. Informational content that is available for everyone; for example, information about the company, help for Windows and Office apps, etc. Content that people in the organization generally search for in their day-to-day work. Common work-related searches include employee benefits, time and expense reporting, submitting purchase orders, and getting help from IT services.

For creating and managing answers, see Plan your content.

Next steps

If you'd like to learn more about how your users will use Microsoft Search, see the following articles: