Easily create Search SOAP Service Connection and a working search query

Task

How to easily create Search SOAP Service Connections in SharePoint 2010 Designer including a working query without getting all kinds of errors.

Solution

1. Install FAST Search for SharePoint MOSS 2010 Query Tool (let’s just call it Query Tool)
2. Install Fiddler 2
3. Run the Query Tool and connect to your SharePoint by filling in site details and credentials and hit Get Metadata
   
4. If you’re not using FAST, you need to select SharePoint from the Results provider
   
5. Select the query scope and managed properties you wish to receive in search results
   
6. Start Fiddler
7. In Query Tool, click Generate Query
8. Back in Fiddler, on left side, select the search.asmx row, then on right side select Inspectors and TextView
   
9. Copy all text from TextView that is inside <queryXml> node
10. Paste text in your favorite text editor and remove line breaks
11. Paste the one liner into queryXml parameter value of your SOAP Data Connection in SharePoint Designer
    
12. All set! Use your new working data source as you wish.

Technorati Tags: SharePoint,Designer,SOAP