How to index SharePoint knowledge articles in Service Management

In Service Management you can enable automatic access to all knowledge stored on your SharePoint and web sites requiring no import steps. From within Service Management, agents can search and access on premise SharePoint articles indexed through out-of-the-box IDOL connectors. These articles are also available to agents who are working with Live Support.

To index SharePoint knowledge articles, you must install an On-Premise Bridge Agent, an IDOL SharePoint Connector, and an IDOL License Server. Thereafter, you create a Knowledge Indexing endpoint to bridge the Connector Framework System (CFS) and the Agent.

Every hour, on the hour, changes registered on the SharePoint server are indexed by the SharePoint Connector, and the SharePoint knowledge articles become available in Service Management through the IDOL Global Search.

To set up SharePoint knowledge indexing:

1. Download and install an On-Premise Bridge Agent, and configure the agent in Service Management. For more information, see How to use On-Premise Bridge agents on Windows or How to use On-Premise Bridge agents on Linux.

   Note You do not need to start the Agent service at this point.

2. After configuring the agent, a server-connection.conf file is downloaded to the default Downloads folder. Copy the server-connection.conf file to the <Agent_installation>/product/conf folder.

3. Download the IDOL SharePoint Connector and IDOL License Server installation files:

   Note Only Windows 64-bit systems are supported.

   1. In Service Management, on the main menu, select Administration > Utilities > Integration > Endpoints.

   2. In the Download Center on the right:

      1. Under SharePoint Connector 2010 or 2013, click the Download link and save the installation file on the SharePoint server.
      2. Under License Server, click the Download link. You can save the installation file in any location.

4. Install the IDOL SharePoint Connector on the SharePoint server, using the following values:

   • For the User, enter the user credentials for a user that has SharePoint Owner permissions.
   • When asked if you want to install a new Connector Framework Server or use an existing one, select Install new CFS.

   Upon installation of the SharePoint Connector, a folder called ConnectorFramework is created on the SharePoint server, parallel to <SharePointConnector_installation> folder.

5. Install the IDOL License Server. Use the license obtained from Support.

6. Copy the following files from the <Agent_installation>\product\domain\indexing-domain\data folder to the new ..\ConnectorFramework folder on the SharePoint server:

   • addDoc.lua
   • deleteDoc.lua

7. Open ..\ConnectorFramework\ConnectorFramework.cfg in a text editor. Add the following lines to the end of the file:

   [ImportTasks]
   Post0=Lua:<Full path to ConnectorFramework>\ConnectorFramework\addDoc.lua
   [IndexTasks]
   Delete0=Lua:<Full path to ConnectorFramework>\ConnectorFramework\deleteDoc.lua
   

   where <Full path to ConnectorFramework> is the full path to the folder containing the ConnectorFramework folder.

8. Open <SharePointConnector_installation>\Sharepoint2010ConnectorCFS.cfg in a text editor, and do the following:

   1. Ensure that the [Connector] section contains the following lines:

      [Connector]
      EnableIngestion=TRUE
      EnableExtraction=FALSE
      TempDirectory=Temp
      EnableScheduledTasks=TRUE
      ScheduleRepeatSecs=60
      ScheduleCycles=-1
      

   2. Ensure that the StartURL parameter is configured as your SharePoint server URL.

   3. In the [License] section, ensure that your IDOL License Server is configured properly. For example:

      [License]
      LicenseServerHost=localhost
      LicenseServerACIPort=20000
      LicenseServerTimeout=600000
      LicenseServerRetries=1
      

9. For knowledge article indexing, you must have a folder to which the CFS writes indexing commands—for example, \\indexcommands\test. This folder must be accessible to both the CFS and On-Premise Bridge Agent services and must have full permissions to the services.

   To make this folder accessible, in the ..\ConnectorFramework folder, create a TXT file called config (no extension). Open the file in a text editor, and specify the path to the folder for these indexing commands. Use the following format: 

   folder=[folder_path]

   For example:

   folder=\\indexcommands\test

10. Create and configure an endpoint for Knowledge Indexing.

    1. In Service Management, from the main menu, select Administration > Utilities > Integration > Endpoints, and create an endpoint that uses the Knowledge Indexing endpoint type.

       When selecting the agent, make sure to select the agent that you installed and configured earlier in this procedure.

       For more information on how to create and configure endpoints, see How to use endpoints.

       Ensure that there is only one endpoint that uses the Knowledge Indexing endpoint type. If there are more endpoints of this type, only the first is recognized.

    2. Select the endpoint that you created, and click Configure. For the Indexing shared folder, enter the location of the folder for the indexing commands.

       Enter only the folder path, for example:

       \\indexcommands\test

11. Restart the Autonomy Sharepoint2010ConnectorCFS and ConnectorFramework services.

12. Restart the On-Premise Bridge Agent service.

    By default, the On-Premise Bridge Agent service is run using the Windows Local System user. If the folder where files should be saved is not located on the same computer as the agent, you may encounter authentication problems. If this happens, you can edit the service's properties as follows:

    1. Navigate to Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools.
    2. Right-click the On-Premise Bridge Agent service and select Properties.
    3. Click the Log On tab and select This account.
    4. Enter the required authentication details.

Related topics

• How to create or update a knowledge/news article
• How to import knowledge article packages
• Quickstart - How to package knowledge articles using the Knowledge Packaging Tool