Difference Between managed properties at Site Collection Level and Search Application Level in SharePoint

Hello All.

Recently I got a chance to work on SP 2013 and one new search feature related to manage properties I found in SP 2013 is for creation of a new managed property at the Site collection level.

The following figures show the various search options available in SP 2013 site and SP 2010 site:



Figure: 1 SharePoint 2013 site options


Figure: 2 SharePoint 2010 site options

In a SP 2013 site there is a Schema option available under the Search and Schema link redirect to _layouts/15/listmanagedproperties.aspx?level=site page (_admin/search/listmanagedproperties.aspx?appid=eddfe58b%2D9920%2D41c2%2D96b6%2D9d2fb96b1711 –managed properties listing page at the search service application level)


Figure: 3 Managed properties page at Site collection level

But there are some differences when you create managed properties at site collection level VS SSA level.

When we create a managed property at the site collection level there are the following limitations:

1. We can create a managed property only of type Text and Yes/No – Boolean as shown in Figure 4.
   
   
2. Managed property cannot be Refinable, as shown in Figure 5.
   
   
3. Managed property cannot be sortable, as shown in Figure 6.
   
   
   Figure: 4 creating new managed property at Site Collection Level – Available Types
   
   
   Figure: 5 creating new managed property at Site Collection Level – No Refinable
   
   
   Figure: 6 creating new managed property at Site Collection Level – No Sortable

Few more points

1. If we want to make the managed property Sortable and Refinable then we could do that but from a Search Service Application.
   
   
2. Except for the preceding three limitations there is no difference between the managed property created from the Site collection level and managed property created from the Search Service Application level.

Thanks!