Add or Edit a Database Source

A Database source allows members of the Administrators and Content Managers built-in groups to retrieve and make searchable the content of a local database via the Coveo On-Premises Crawling Module (see Coveo On-Premises Crawling Module).

As an administrator or a content manager, you can add the content of a local database to a Coveo organization. In a Coveo-powered search interface, the source content is accessible to either everyone, the source creator only, or specific users as determined by source permissions (see Content Security).

Source Key Characteristics

Add or Edit a Database Source

Before you start, ensure that the Coveo On-Premises Crawling Module is installed on a server that has access to the database of which you want to retrieve the content. Both servers must use the same time zone to prevent indexing timing issues.

Then, to add a source, in the Add a source of content panel, click the Crawling Module tab, and then click Database.

To edit a source, on the Sources page, click the desired source, and then, in the Action bar, click Edit.

“Configuration” Tab

In the Add/Edit a Database Source subpage, the Configuration tab is selected by default. It contains your source’s general and authentication information, as well as other parameters.

If you have not already installed the Coveo On-Premises Crawling Module on a server that has access to the database of which you want to retrieve the content, click Download Crawling Module to do so.

General Information

Source Name

Enter a name for your source.

Connection String

Enter your database connection parameters. Since the connection string syntax differs from one database type to another, you might want to see The Connection Strings Reference for details.

Item Type

Enter the table or view object names that you intend to index. You will later define them in the database configuration.

Driver Type

Select the software driver that provides access to your database.

Paired Crawling Module

If your source is a Crawling Module source and if you have more than one Crawling Module linked to this organization, select the one with which you want to pair your source. If you change the Crawling Module instance paired with your source, a successful rebuild is required for your change to apply.

Character Optical Recognition (OCR)

If you want Coveo Cloud to extract text from image files or PDF files containing images, check the appropriate box. OCR-extracted text is processed as item data, meaning that it’s fully searchable and will appear in the item Quick View. See Enable Optical Character Recognition for details on this feature.

Index

When adding a source, if you have more than one logical (non-Elasticsearch) index in your organization, select the index in which the retrieved content will be stored (see Leverage Many Coveo Indexes). If your organization only has one index, this drop-down menu isn’t visible and you have no decision to make.

“Authentication” Section

Enter the Username and Password of a dedicated user account that has access to the content you want to index. See Source Credentials Leading Practices. Then, select one of the following options from the drop-down list:

• Native

  Select this option to authenticate users based on the credentials stored in the connection string.

  • This option should be selected if you aren’t indexing permissions for the source.

  • This option allows selecting the Determined by source permissions option in the Content Security tab if you have different email securities for different mapping types.

• Active Directory on-premises

  Select this option to secure your database content using the Active Directory identities in the XML configuration.

  To enforce this feature, you must:

  • Select the Determined by source permissions option in the Content Security tab.

  • Define allowedusers in the XML-formatted configuration.

If you selected Active Directory on-premises, you must also fill the Active Directory username and Active Directory password fields that appear since this option won’t work with only the dedicated user credentials. If you selected Native, skip to “Content Security” Tab.

Active Directory Username and Active Directory Password

Enter credentials to grant Coveo Cloud access to your Active Directory.

Expand Well-Known SIDs

Check this box if you want the users included in your Active Directory well-known security identifiers to be granted access to the indexed content. Expect an increase in the duration of the security identity provider refresh operation. Supported well-known SIDs are: Everyone, Authenticated Users, Domain Admins, Domain Users, and Anonymous Users.

Enable TLS

Check this box to use a TLS protocol to retrieve your security identities. If you do, we strongly recommend selecting StartTLS if you can. Since LDAPS is a much older protocol, you should only select this value if StartTLS is incompatible with your environment.

Email Attributes

By default, Coveo Cloud retrieves the email address associated to each security identity from the mail attribute. Optionally, you can specify additional or different attributes to check. Should an attribute contain more than one value, Coveo Cloud uses the first one.

“Database Configuration” Section

In the XML configuration box, enter a XML-formatted configuration consisting of queries against your database to retrieve and copy the data from record fields to Coveo Cloud fields. This configuration should contain only read queries, or else you could make unwanted changes to your database.

You can also run subqueries on every item to complete the information with more complex queries. See Further Configuration for other options you can implement.

“Content Security” Tab

Select who will be able to access the source items through a Coveo-powered search interface. For details on this parameter, see Content Security.

“Access” Tab

In the Access tab, determine whether each group and API key can view or edit the source configuration (see Resource Access):

1. In the Access Level column, select View or Edit for each available group.

2. On the left-hand side of the tab, if available, click Groups or API Keys to switch lists.

Completion

1. Finish adding or editing your source:

   • When you want to save your source configuration changes without starting a build/rebuild, such as when you know you want to do other changes soon, click Add Source/Save.

     To add the source content or to make your changes effective, on the Sources page, you must click Launch build or Start required rebuild in the source Status column.

     OR

   • When you’re done editing the source and want to make changes effective, click Add and Build Source/Save and Rebuild Source.

     Back on the Sources page, you can review the progress of your source addition or modification.

   Once the source is built or rebuilt, you can review its content in the Content Browser.

2. Optionally, consider editing or adding mappings.

   You can only manage mapping rules once you build the source (see Refresh, Rescan, or Rebuild Sources).

What’s Next?

• See XML Configuration Further Configuration for options you can implement to make your source more efficient.

• Adapt the source update schedule to your needs.

• If you encounter database timeout errors, you may want to edit the source JSON configuration and set the CommandTimeout hidden parameter value to 600 seconds in the parameters section.

  If the issue persists, you can either increase the parameter value or use paged SQL queries instead.

• Consider subscribing to deactivation notifications to receive an alert when a Crawling Module component becomes obsolete and stops the content crawling process.