Add or Edit a Generic REST API Source
Add or Edit a Generic REST API Source
Coveo has dedicated connectors for many web and on-premises systems, therefore allowing you to quickly make application content searchable. See the Connector Directory for the full list.
However, there may be applications of which you want to index the content, but for which there’s no dedicated connector. In such a case, when you have the required privileges, you can use a Generic REST API source to retrieve and make the desired content searchable with Coveo.
A Generic REST API source allows you to crawl content from a remote repository exposing its data through a REST API. When creating your source, you must provide a JSON REST configuration instructing Coveo to retrieve items from the repository REST services and their respective resource endpoints (see Concepts, Reference, JSON Configuration Examples, and Tutorial). This configuration indicates which API calls to execute to fetch the desired items, how to parse the responses to extract relevant metadata, and which content type these items represent.
You have valuable content in an on-premises content management system (CMS) developed in-house. One of your developers can create a crawler to get this content and push it to your Coveo organization.
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Leading practice
The number of items that a source processes per hour (crawling speed) depends on various factors, such as network bandwidth and source configuration. See About Crawling Speed for information on what can impact crawling speed, as well as possible solutions. |
Source Key Characteristics
Features | Supported | Additional information | |
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For each endpoint you define in your source configuration, you can provide a refresh endpoint to override the initial endpoint. When you do so, the connector can add, update, or delete specific items in the index instead of refreshing the entire repository. However, the following limitations currently apply:
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Content security options |
If your source configuration includes the |
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Add or Edit a Generic REST API Source
When adding or editing a Generic REST API source, follow the instructions below. The completion steps are especially important when creating a source of this type.
"Configuration" Tab
On the Add/Edit a Generic REST API Source subpage, the Configuration tab is selected by default. It contains your source’s general and authentication information, as well as other parameters.
General Information
Source Name
Enter a name for your source.
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Leading practice
A source name can’t be modified once it’s saved, therefore be sure to use a short and descriptive name, using letters, numbers, hyphens ( |
Character Optical Recognition (OCR)
If you want Coveo 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.
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Note
Contact Coveo Sales to add this feature to your organization license. |
"Authentication" Section
In the Authentication section, all parameters are optional. Fill the appropriate boxes depending on the authentication type used by the source you want to make searchable.
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If your source uses a HTTP, Basic, Kerberos, or NTLM authentication protocol, enter the Username and Password of the account with which you want to crawl the source. This fills the
username
andpassword
fields in your source JSON configuration. The account of which you enter the credentials must have access to all the content that you want to make searchable. See Source Credentials Leading Practices. -
If your source uses the OAuth 2.0 authentication protocol, enter your content source Client ID, Client secret and Refresh token in the corresponding boxes.
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If your source uses an API key to authenticate, enter it in the API key box.
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If your source doesn’t require authentication, leave all boxes empty.
"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.
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Note
If, while writing your source JSON configuration, you chose to index content access permissions and used the |
"Access" Tab
In the Access tab, set whether each group and API key can view or edit the source configuration (see Resource Access):
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If available, in the left pane, click Groups or API Keys to select the appropriate list.
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In the Access Level column for groups or API keys with access to source content, select View or Edit.
Completion
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Click Add Source/Save to add/save your source configuration.
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While writing your JSON configuration, you may have decided to populate fields that aren’t default fields. If you have not already created these fields for another source, you must create them in the Fields (platform-eu | platform-au) page before building your source.
Examples-
You decided to retrieve picture URIs and to have Coveo populate the
pictureuri
field with this data. Your item metadata therefore contains:"pictureuri": "%[picture.uri]"
However, since the
pictureuri
field isn’t a default field likeauthor
ordate
, you must create it. -
You have another Generic REST API source populating the custom field
facebookaccountid
. When creating your new source, you therefore don’t need to create this field, as it’s already in the Fields (platform-eu | platform-au) page.
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Ensure that your source correctly maps all the fields to populate. If a field doesn’t have a mapping, you must create one.
ExampleYou map the
pictureuri
field with the following rule:%[pictureuri]
. -
On the Sources (platform-eu | platform-au) page, you must click Launch build or Launch rebuild in the source Status column to add the source content or to make your changes effective, respectively.