Hi,

My customer has multiple external information such as news, company data, insurance information, industry data, legal information etc stored in various data sources (non SharePoint). I need to use SharePoint as the common search platform and aggregate the search data from these sources. When I search for a keyword it should be searched against ALL of these external data sources and search results should be presented to the end user.

How can I achieve this in SharePoint? There are 12 external data sources in total.

Cutloo.

Hi Cutloo,

Yes you can achieve this by SharePoint.

First you need to analysis the data according to fit in the SharePoint structure. You have basically three option to crawl the data related to the external content.

1. Create BCS Connector (For secure data, like to crawl the SQL Database & other database)

2. Web Site (Public sites)

3. Federated (Like news feeds ex RSS)

It would be possible to plan and use SharePoint as legal information. Once you have a clear picture next step to create the content source based on your content & create the crawl rule to display in the search center.

Example of the contentsoruce

1. News
2. Company data
3. Insurance Infomation

The query rule example:  

• {?{searchTerms} (contentsource=" News" OR contentsource=" company data" OR contentsource=" insurance information")}

Let me know if you req. any further help

Regards,

Basant Pandey

http://sharepointfordeveloper.blogspot.com/

• Marked as answer by Cutloo Tuesday, January 20, 2015 6:41 AM

Hi Cutloo,

Yes you can achieve this by SharePoint.

First you need to analysis the data according to fit in the SharePoint structure. You have basically three option to crawl the data related to the external content.

1. Create BCS Connector (For secure data, like to crawl the SQL Database & other database)

2. Web Site (Public sites)

3. Federated (Like news feeds ex RSS)

It would be possible to plan and use SharePoint as legal information. Once you have a clear picture next step to create the content source based on your content & create the crawl rule to display in the search center.

Example of the contentsoruce

1. News
2. Company data
3. Insurance Infomation

The query rule example:  

• {?{searchTerms} (contentsource=" News" OR contentsource=" company data" OR contentsource=" insurance information")}

Let me know if you req. any further help

Regards,

Basant Pandey

http://sharepointfordeveloper.blogspot.com/

• Marked as answer by Cutloo Tuesday, January 20, 2015 6:41 AM

All of the external data sources have APIs exposed. I will not be able to crawl them directly as not all of them are web sites. Expectation is to build a unified search platform by using these APIs.

Can I build BCS connectors for these APIs?

Hi,

Yes you can use BCS Connector in this scenario.

All of the external data sources have APIs exposed. I will not be able to crawl them directly as not all of them are web sites. Expectation is to build a unified search platform by using these APIs.

Can I build BCS connectors for these APIs?

Yes you can build the BCS connector using APIs.

OData Using BCS

http://zimmergren.net/technical/sharepoint-2013-business-connectivity-services-consuming-odata-in-bcs-using-an-app-external-content-type

Useful links 

1. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee556431.aspx
2. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee556431(v=office.14).aspx
3. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee556831(v=office.14).aspx
4. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee557349(v=office.14).aspx

• Edited by Basant Pandey Monday, January 19, 2015 9:45 AM

All of the external data sources have APIs exposed. I will not be able to crawl them directly as not all of them are web sites. Expectation is to build a unified search platform by using these APIs.

Can I build BCS connectors for these APIs?

Yes you can build the BCS connector using APIs.

OData Using BCS

http://zimmergren.net/technical/sharepoint-2013-business-connectivity-services-consuming-odata-in-bcs-using-an-app-external-content-type

Useful links 

1. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee556431.aspx
2. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee556431(v=office.14).aspx
3. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee556831(v=office.14).aspx
4. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee557349(v=office.14).aspx

• Edited by Basant Pandey Monday, January 19, 2015 9:45 AM