C# cannot configure SPFx webpart searchable properties via CSOM ? Package or SharePoint bug ?

[patrickblanc]

Hello guys

I am facing the following problem with PnP.Framework package and the problem seems to be the same in SharePointPnPCoreOnline package.

Discussed in #449

^{Originally posted by patrickblanc August 18, 2021}
I am adding a webpart like this :

var component = page.AvailablePageComponents().FirstOrDefault(c => new Guid(c.Id) == new Guid("GUID"));
if (component != null)
{
    var webpart = page.NewWebPart(component);
    AccordionProperties properties = new ()
    {
        Description = "Accordion",
        AccordionItems = items,
    };

    webpart.PropertiesJson = JsonSerializer.Serialize(properties, new JsonSerializerOptions()
    {
        PropertyNamingPolicy = JsonNamingPolicy.CamelCase,
        WriteIndented = true,
    });
    page.AddControl(webpart, page.Sections[0].Columns[0]);
}

My custom SPFx webpart set the properties as searchable with the following configuration in the typescript webpart file :

protected get propertiesMetadata(): IWebPartPropertiesMetadata {
  return {
    'accordionItems[*].header': { isSearchablePlainText: true },
    'accordionItems[*].content': { isSearchablePlainText: true },
  }
}

My problem is the following, on the webpart, we can't set webpart.ServerProcessedContent property by code. It sounds legit as it seems to be a Server Processed Content, according to the name, but it seems not automatically updated during the process. So the webpart in the page looks like this (adding ?maintenanceMode=True at the end of the page URL) :

If I search the text within my webpart in the search at this moment, no result is found.

But if I click on the edit button on the modern page and save it directly (without doing any change on the webpart or the page)... then the properties is empty, but the serverProcessedContent contains my items and it is now searchable.

Then if I am searching for the webpart text content, result start appearing in the search.

For me it sounds ok to be able to set only PropertiesJson on the webpart object. And I have the feeling this is not a problem related with PnP.Framework but with Sharepoint itself. As described above, if we set the PropertiesJson and then add the webpart into a page, then SharePoint during the process should check the PropertiesJson and extract the searchable properties to remove those from PropertiesJson and update the ServerProcessedContent properties... or we should be able to define which properties are property only and which properties are searchable properties (html, plain text... etc) before sending the request to SharePoint.

This is a serious lack if we plan to migrate classic page into modern page because the old content should be searchable.

[jansenbe]

@patrickblanc : when you set the PropertiesJson attribute of the web part the json you provide can contain a serverProcessedContent node...you can try to configure your web part in workbench and then copy the relevant json as described here (https://pnp.github.io/pnpcore/using-the-sdk/pages-webparts.html) and shown below:

[patrickblanc]

@jansenbe thanks for the clarification, it is working like a charm 👍