Searching Sensitivity Labels in SharePoint

Searching Sensitivity Labels in SharePoint

Sensitivity labels are a powerful tool for protecting documents, offering features like watermarks, encryption, and access control at the file level. However, the default Sensitivity column in SharePoint has limitations—it cannot be filtered, indexed, or bulk updated. This blog post explores ways to search for sensitivity label values in SharePoint and highlights some challenges and potential solutions.

Challenges with Sensitivity Labels in SharePoint

The crawled managed property InformationProtectionLabelId refers to the sensitivity label’s GUID/ID, which is not user-friendly for end users to easily search.

If you need to retrieve all files with a specific sensitivity label (e.g., “Confidential”) to ensure they are not stored in widely accessible SharePoint sites or libraries, PowerShell is currently the most reliable option. Refer to the script Get Files with Retention or Sensitivity Labels in SharePoint Online for an example of how to achieve this. The script uses the internal name _DisplayName to retrieve sensitivity label values. This post covers the mapping of the _DisplayName to a refinable property.

1. Map ows__displayName to a Refinable String

The crawled property ows__displayName can be mapped to a managed property like RefinableString00 to make it searchable.

Steps:

  1. Identify the ows__displayName crawled property. ows__displayName

  2. Map ows__displayName to RefinableString00. RefinableString00 mapped

  3. Test the search using the mapped refinable string. RefinableString00

2. Map Sensitivity to a Refinable String

Another approach is to map the crawled property Sensitivity to a managed property like RefinableString01.

Steps:

  1. Map the Sensitivity crawled property to RefinableString01. RefinableString01

  2. Add RefinableString01 to the search vertical to test filtering by sensitivity labels. Sensitivity Vertical filter

3. Test InformationProtectionLabelId

If needed, you can add the InformationProtectionLabelId managed property to the search filter. This property refers to the sensitivity label’s GUID/ID.

Steps:

  1. Add InformationProtectionLabelId as search filter. Information Label Sensitivity

4. Validate Search Filters

Search filters may take up to 48 hours to propagate and appear within the search verticals. Once they are available, test the filters to ensure they work as expected.

Information Label Sensitivity

Conclusion

While sensitivity labels provide robust document protection, their integration with SharePoint search has limitations. Mapping crawled properties like ows__displayName to refinable strings can help make sensitivity labels searchable.

References