Configure Twitter Search with Sharepoint and Search Server

This blog explains the steps in configuring Twitter Search with Sharepoint and Search Server 2008

Prerequisite: Search Server Express or Search Server 2008 installed and configured

1. Navigate to the Search Administration Page (under Shared Services Administration) from SharePoint Central Administration Page,

2. Navigate to the  Search Administration Page as shown below

3. Then Click on “Federated Locations” Link under “Queries and Results” for configuring the search on Twitter.

Federated Locations is used to configure search on third-party websites like Google, Bing, etc…

4. Now we are in “Manage Federated Locations”. Using this page we can add or import a new third party search to SharePoint.

Click on “New Location” link to add a new search to the SharePoint Page. This will show the “Add Federated Location” page.

5. The Add Federated Location page has 4 categories as General information, Location Information, Display Information, Restrictions, and Credentials Information.

On General Information enter the

Location Name as “Twitter Search”,

Display Name as “Twitter Search”,

Description as “Search tweets on Twitter”

Author as “Copmany Name”

Version as “1”

Leave the Trigger part as “Always: Query should always match”

6. Federated Search was mainly configured on Location information. There only we have to add the configuration address for search.

Select the Location type as ‘OpenSearch 1.0/1.1”, then only we can search on other servers,

Add the search address as http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q={searchTerms}

on Query Template and “More Results” link Template.

6. Then on Display information check the “Use Default Formatting” to view the default view for the Twitter Search.

If you want to apply your own style, uncheck the “Use Default Formatting” and edit the style sheet in XSL textbox and the parameters needed for XSLT under properties textbox.

7. After finishing this, Click OK to save this new New location.

8. After that, we have to add the Federated web part to Search results page to get the result on Search Query.

Add the Federated Result Web part, and then edit the properties to select the location type for the web part.

9. On editing the properties for webpart, choose the location type “Twitter Search”

10. Click OK to save the properties to Federated Results webpart.

11. We can also change the view of the Twitter search to look more attractive by changing the XSL stylesheet on XSL Editor property under display properties on when editing the web part.