How to display values from custom managed properties in the hover panel in SharePoint Server 2013

This is a blog post in the series "How to change how search results are displayed." To demonstrate how you can customize your search results, I'll use examples from an internal Microsoft Search Center.

For an overview of the blog post in this series, go to How to change the way search results are displayed in SharePoint Server 2013.

In my previous blog post, I showed you how to display values from custom managed properties with hit highlighting, and get automatically improved relevancy based on end-user click behavior. In this blog we'll learn:

 

How to decide which hover panel display template to modify

Before we do anything, let's first refresh our memories on how the different display templates are connected:

  1. Each result type contains a reference to an item display template.
  2. Each item display template contains a reference to a hover panel display template.
  3. Each item display template contains a reference to the common item display template. 
  4. Each referenced hover panel display template contains references to three common hover panel display templates.

How different display templates are connected

 

By default, the rendering of the hover panel is done by the three common hover panel display templates. The illustration below shows how the common hover panel display templates were used to render the default hover panel in my Search Center scenario.

Display templates used to render the hover panel

To make life as easy as possible for yourself when adding custom properties to your hover panel, you should leave these three common hover panel display templates as is, and instead, concentrate on the result type specific hover panel display template (highlighted in the illustration below). That’s what I did in my Search Center scenario, and it’s what I’ll show you in this blog post.

The result type specific hover panel display template

 

I completely understand if this sounds confusing, but I’ll walk you through all the steps in the next two sections. So let’s just get started!

 

How to copy an existing hover panel display template

Remember that when I created the custom item display template TechNet content, I started by copying the item display template named Item_Default.  The Item_Default display template contains a reference to the Item_Default_HoverPanel hover panel display template.  Because I copied the Item_Default display template, my TechNet content display template also contains a reference to the Item_Default_HoverPanel

Reference to the Item_Default_HoverPanel display template

I wanted to use the Item_Default_HoverPanel hover panel display template as a basis when adding custom properties to my hover panel, so in my mapped network drive, I copied the Item_Default_HoverPanel display template…

Copy the Item_Default_HoverPanel display template

… and gave it a new name: TechNet_Content_HoverPanel.

Renamed to TechNet_Content_HoverPanel

I only had to rename the HTML file, because the name of the associated JavaScript file was automatically updated.

In the TechNet content display template, I changed the reference in var hoverUrl so that it pointed to the newly copied and renamed TechNet_Content_HoverPanel display template.

New var hoverUrl that it points to TechNet_Content_HoverPanel border=

Now that I had created a custom hover panel display template, it was time to move on to the exciting stuff: adding custom properties.

 

How to modify a hover panel display template to show values from custom managed properties

In my Search Center scenario, the default hover panel contained almost no additional information about the search result.

Content in the default hover panel

I wanted to add the values from the following four site columns to the hover panel:

  • GUID/UUID
  • Internal Writer
  • Status
  • Submission Contact

The screenshot below shows how these values are maintained for an individual item in our internal list.

List item in internal list

When adding custom properties to a hover panel, you have to add them to the item display template (highlighted in the illustration below).

I will say this again, because this is not really intuitive: When adding custom properties to a hover panel, you have to add them to the item display template.

Result type specific item display template

 

To display custom properties in the hover panel, here’s what you should do:

  1. Find the managed property names of the site columns that you want to use. I showed you how to do this in a previous blog.
  2. Open the item display template that contains the reference to the hover panel display template that you want to customize. In the item display template, in the ManagedPropertyMapping tag, use the following syntax to add the custom managed properties that you want to display:
    '<Current item property name>':<Managed property name>'

In my scenario, I added four managed properties to the TechNet content item display template.

Properties added to item display template

  1. NOTE: You do not need to do this step if you are using SharePoint Online.
    Go to Site settings --> Search Result Types. Notice that a Property Sync alert is displayed.

Property Sync alert displayed

This alert is displayed because we have added new managed properties to an item display template (we did this in step 2). To update the result types with the newly added managed properties, choose Update.

Update managed properties

IMPORTANT! If you don't do the update, the newly added managed properties will not display in your hover panel.

  1. Open the hover panel display template that you want to modify, and use HTML to add the custom properties that you want to display.

    In my scenario, I opened the TechNet_Content_HoverPanel. The screenshot below shows how I added my four custom properties.

Four custom Properties added to hover panel display template

  1. Save the file.

By doing a new search and hovering over a search result, I saw that the four custom properties were now displayed. Nice!

Four custom properties displayed in the hover panel

However, I wasn’t quite satisfied. The values for Internal Writer and Submission Contact were displayed differently. The screenshot might not show it clearly, but hopefully you can see that the value for Internal Writer was displayed nicely, but the value for Submission Contact was very long and contained an ugly GUID.

Both these two values come from a site column of type Person or Group. The difference is that in the site column settings, Internal Writer is configured to show Name, whereas Submission Contact is configured to show Name (with presence).

Two different site column settings

 

To make Submission Contact display correctly, I copied the HP.GetAuthorsHtml method that is used by the Item_CommonHoverPanel_Body display template to display authors.

HP.GetAuthorsHtml method used in custom hover panel display template

And now the hover panel was starting to look really good.

Final hover panel rendering

But to make the hover panel even more helpful, I wanted to add an action to the bottom of the hover panel.  I’ll show you how to do this this in my next blog post.

 

Next blog post in this series
How to add a custom action to the hover panel