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YanakievKiril-0704 asked DavidTappan-3221 commented

Migrating managed and crawled properties

I am migrating SP 2013 to SPO. I have a search results web part which doesn't show any results (web pages). The error I get is "Property doesn't exist or it is used in a manner inconsistent with schema settings". Based on a quick research it appears I have to migrate the managed and crawled properties. Unfortunately ShareGate can't do this. On top of this the search has refiners which are also not available on the migrated site. So I have the following questions arise.

If the properties are migrated would this fix my missing refiners and the search will provide the expected results?

As far as I can understand migrating the managed and crawled properties could be done with custom PS script but there a lot of topics and frankly said I don't know from where to start and which one would be suitable in my case. Any advice would be appreciated.

Microsoft mentions that SPMT could be used for this https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointmigration/managed-metadata-migration. What is the difference in comparison with custom PS script?

Generally which way would you suggest me to use? Custom PS script or SPMT?

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AllenXu-MSFT avatar image
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AllenXu-MSFT answered DavidTappan-3221 commented

Hi @YanakievKiril-0704,

If the properties are migrated would this fix my missing refiners and the search will provide the expected results?


  • Based on the error message, missing search schema(crawled/managed properties) may be the cause of your issue but you don't need to migrate properties(I will explain this below). Since ShareGate is a 3rd party tool and I don't have a environment to test it, anyway I suggest you contact 3rd party support to confirm with this issue. Also confirm with them if search result web part is supported for migration using ShareGate(as far as I know, search result web part is not supported for migration using SPMT, not sure about ShareGate).

Microsoft mentions that SPMT could be used for this https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointmigration/managed-metadata-migration. What is the difference in comparison with custom PS script?


  • The article you post is about migrating managed metadata not managed properties. Managed metadata and managed property are two completely different concepts in SharePoint online. Generally, properties will be automatically crawled after the execution of some timer jobs in the backend. If there are values in the crawled property, the crawled property will be mapped to managed property. It is also controlled automatically by some SharePoint Online timer jobs in the backend.
    You don't need to migrate properties at all since they will be automatically crawled and mapped after migration and I think there is no way to migrate them from on-prem to Online.

    So, one cause of missing properties is that the time jobs in the backend haven't been executed and the properties haven't been crawled. As per my experience, it will take up to 24 hours for the timer jobs to be triggered and executed. Wait for some time and see if the issue still exists.


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Yes you are right, I did use the incorrect managed metadata term while it is the properties I am talking about. Site is migrated a week ago but I still don't see the needed properties (I will check again tomorrow just to be sure). As for the Search web part it appears to be migrated but the refiners are missing probably because they are connected somehow with the properties If I understood correctly. Since I don't have access to the backend is there a way for me to force the execution of those timer jobs - ask the sysadmin or something? Generally speaking is there anything I can do right now which will help the search web part to work as it should?

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@YanakievKiril-0704,

How things going on? Have the properties been crawled and mapped to managed properties?

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Hi, the refiners and the managed and crawled properties are still missing from the list.

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While it is true that all crawled properties will be automatically mapped to managed properties in SharePoint Online, the names of those managed properties will be different from the names you may have chosen when you manually mapped the properties as was necessary in SharePoint on premises. So if you have a custom search results page that was migrated to the cloud, and it was originally configured on prem with the old managed property names, it won't find those names in the online search index. To fix this, you have to look at the search schema in SP Online, and find the managed property names that were created in place of the names you used on premises. When you reconfigure the search page to use those new managed property names, it should work.

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