Joel's SharePoint Architecture Blog

SharePoint Server, SharePoint Online and Office 365 Training, Architecture, Administration and Development

Audience Targeted Searches in Modern SharePoint Online

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Did you know that you can use SharePoint search query language to bring back audience targeted content?

So, you’ve implemented Audience Targeting in your Modern SharePoint Libraries.

As a recap, you can do this by going to Library Settings -> Audience targeting settings:

And then check the box to “Enable audience targeting”:

Now you’ve enabled audience targeting, you can use SharePoint search query language to bring back audience targeted content.

For example, a search for all published news pages can be accomplished with the following KQL query:

PromotedState:2

To augment this to include only audience targeted new pages, try this:

(PromotedState:2 AND ModernAudienceAadObjectIds:{User.Audiences})

And to also include pages that are not targeted at all:

(PromotedState:2 AND (ModernAudienceAadObjectIds:{User.Audiences} OR NOT IsAudienceTargeted:true))

You can use this trick from search boxes:

And of course you can also use it from custom code (including projects like the excellent Modern Search Web Part on GitHub).

The Highlighted Content Web Part has this functionality built in:

Happy audience targeting!

SharePoint Thing a Day 003 – Information Architecture

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Folders are evil

#spthingaday 003 – Information Architecture. Folders are evil. Use metadata. #SharePoint, #Office365.

A post shared by JFDI Consulting (@jfdiconsulting) on

On a fileshare, all you have is path and filename. That’s the only axis by which you can classify your stuff. So you nest folders, within folders, within folders. Then you pack the filename with extra bits of information – like the initials of the last editor, or the version number.

You don’t need to do this in SharePoint.

Add columns to your libraries. Text columns, number columns, choice columns, managed metadata columns. Each file can have several of these values simultaneously. But a file can only live in one folder at a time.

Use metadata.