Search Box Tile

In order to use the Search Box Tile, you will need to understand the nature of the tile. To help you achieve a deeper understanding, this article will address the following:

Summary: The Search Box Tile searches content from multiple sources via SharePoint Search or various search engines. 

Why the Search Box Tile? The Search Box Tile allows for flexible and effective research by enabling users to configure the parameters of their search. 

What the Search Box Tile has to offer: When the Search Box Tile is placed onto the page, it can be configured to use SharePoint search or the following search engines: Google, Bing, Yahoo or Ask. The Search Box Tile also supports custom search paths. If you have a custom search path you will be able to input the URL and direct the search at specific folders within SharePoint. A custom search path can also be configured for the utilization for search engines beyond those provided in tile.

Settings: The Search Box Tile Settings is where users can customize the tile's display and behavior options. Within the Search Box Tile, there are six tabs (General, Text, Icon, Search, Tile Behavior, and Advanced). When you drag the People Search tile onto the page, you can customize how the results page is displayed, as well as the color and text shown on the tile. Once you enter text from the user's indexed profile information, such as name, title or location, a People Search Page will open in the display option that was chosen.

The General tab allow a user to adjust visual features of the Search Box Tile itself. 

Width
Adjusts the width of the tile, in pixels.

Height
Adjusts the height of the tile, in pixels.

Background Color
Changes the background color of the tile using the color picker.

Advanced Styles
For more information on Advanced Styles (A.S.), refer to the article that discusses the features. Advanced Styles will almost always be under the General Tab. 

Padding
Adjusts the padding (the gap between the text and the edge of the tile) to the left, right, top or bottom of the tile, in pixels.

The Text tab is responsible for display (text) customization. Users can change the way text is displayed. 

Place-holder Text
Changes the title of the tile.

Override Page Font
Allows you to override the page font.

Font Family
Changes the font family of the text within the Text field. Can be selected by a drop-down list. (Only available when override page font is selected).

Font Size
Changes the size (in pixels) of the text within the Text field.

Font Color
Changes the color of the text within the Text field. Can be selected by the color picker.

Font Style
Changes the style of the text within the Text field. Either Italic and/or Underlined.

Font Weight
Changes the weight of the text within the Text field. Can be selected by a drop-down list.

The Icon Tab lets users change the search icon that appears on the tile. It achieves this by allowing users to link out to different images.

Icon Path
Sets the location from where the icon image is retrieved.

Icon Background Color
Changes the background color of the icon using the color picker.

The Search Tab gives the user the ability to narrow or broaden their searches by various filters.

Search Provider
Changes which search provider the search tile uses, either SharePoint, Google, Bing, Yahoo or Ask. Specific to Google, there is an option to view search results originating in either America, Australia, or China.

Search Scope
Changes the range of the search, either searches Everything, the Site Collection or the Subsite

Link Target
Changes where the links opens, either in a New Window or In Place.

Custom Search Path
If you have a custom search engine or one that isn't one of the current search engines, you will be able to put in a custom search path to that engine.

This tab can either be Tile Behavior or Layout. Both of which depends on the type of canvas that is selected. For more information, refer to the following article: Tile Behavior & Layout. 

The Advanced tab allows for more direct control of the tile through administrative settings and custom code. Users can control tile visibility to specific groups of people, disallow other users to modify the tile,  and implement custom CSS classes. For more information, refer to the following article: Advanced tab. 

As mentioned previously, the Search Box Tile pulls information from the in-tile search engines or a SharePoint site collection. From a SharePoint perspective, it can be configured to pull in information from a Site Collection, a Site, or a specific folder within a site. 

The Search Box Tile can be configured to pull a variety of resources mentioned in greater detail through out this article. 

For a branded search experience that leverages meta data specific to a company, the meta-data must and branded search experience must be configured by a SharePoint admin.  This link can provide you with more insight on how to configure SharePoint Search.

For a Search experience that compliments the O365 experience we recommend users configure the Search Box Tile to use SharePoint Home Search from the options available in-tile.

For companies who have a SharePoint Admin managing the environment we recommend using the default SharePoint Search as it can be customized to provide a branded experience.