How to initiate a reindexing of the search catalog in SharePoint Online

The new Content Search Web Parts have arrived in SharePoint Online. Once you map your Managed Property or Refinable Strings in the admin section of SharePoint Online.

The SharePoint search engine will index you content in the next crawl to populate your refinable strings for you.

You can wait for the Search Engine to run a full crawl to see your work in action, or you could initiate a crawl yourself. If you have a SharePoint on-premise installation this is easy. You can either Reindex Your List or Start A Full Crawl within Central Administration.

Using the Reindex Your List method, does not speed things up in Office 365. You have to wait patiently for Microsoft to do a full crawl at their scheduled time whether you click that button or not (anecdotally you can wait up to a week for this crawl to happen).

I hate to wait, so one way to initiate the reindexing of your content for Office 365 is to update an item in your document library. Updating the item will trigger SharePoint Online’s Continuous Crawl function and within a few minutes your Refinable Strings and Integers will be populating your Content Search Web Part.

Updating each item in a list or library is tedious, so use the Reindex List button.  Open your list, click List Settings > Advanced Settings. 

Click the Reindex List button to reindex all of the content in your list during the next crawl.

If you are in a document library click Reindex Document Library

You will then be presented with a prompt, click Reindex List again.

The reindex method is not instantaneous, so be patient.  I have found the search index should be updated with your latest changes within about 20 minutes.