Add or Edit a Generic REST API Source

The Coveo Platform has dedicated connectors for many web and on-premises systems, therefore allowing you to quickly make application content searchable (see Connector Directory). However, there may be applications of which you want to include the content in Coveo Cloud, but for which there’s no dedicated connector. In such a case, members of the Administrators and Content Managers built-in groups can use a Generic REST API source to retrieve and make the desired content searchable in Coveo Cloud.

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 Cloud 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.

Source Key Characteristics

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.

Character Optical Recognition (OCR)

Check this box if you want Coveo Cloud to extract text from image files or PDF files containing images. 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

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.

• 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 and password 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.

• If your source uses an API key to authenticate, enter it in the API key box.

• If your source doesn’t require authentication, leave all boxes empty.

“Content to Include” Section

In the JSON configuration box, enter your source JSON configuration.

For more information on the Generic REST API source JSON configuration, see:

• Concepts

• Reference

• Tutorial

“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. Click Add Source/Save to add/save your source configuration.

2. While writing your JSON configuration, you may have decided to populate fields that aren’t Coveo Cloud default fields. If you have not already created these fields for another source, you must create them in the Fields page before building your source.

   • You decided to retrieve picture URIs and to have Coveo Cloud 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 like author or date, 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 page.

3. Ensure that your source maps correctly all the fields to populate. If a field doesn’t have a mapping, you must create one.

   You map the pictureuri field with the following rule: %[pictureuri].

4. On the Sources page, you must click Start initial build or Start required rebuild in the source Status column to add the source content or to make your changes effective, respectively.

What’s Next?

Adapt the source update schedule to your needs.