Configure business data search

Applies To: Office SharePoint Server 2007

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Topic Last Modified: 2016-11-14

In this article:

  • Ensure availability of business data

  • Configure and crawl business data content sources

  • Configure and customize query options for business data

Administrators of the search service and administrators of individual site collections must configure several options before business data is available in search results. To make business data available for search, you should:

  • Ensure that the data you want users to find is available in the Business Data Catalog, and ensure that users have the intended permissions.

  • Configure and crawl business data content sources.

  • Configure and customize query options for business data.

Most of these tasks are performed by the administrator of the search shared service or by the administrator of the Business Data Catalog. Some tasks are performed by site collection administrators. Both shared services administrators and site collection administrators will help plan search for business data.

Ensure availability of business data

Users can only search for business data for line-of-business applications if it is available in the Business Data Catalog, and only if users have the intended permissions. The Shared Services Provider (SSP) administrator for the Business Data Catalog must configure access to business data and register business data types and properties for all line-of-business applications that use the SSP.

For more information on configuring access to business data, see Configure access to business data. For more information about registering line-of-business applications in the Business Data Catalog, see Register business applications in the Business Data Catalog.

Configure and crawl business data content sources

Business data, as any other content, can only be found during search queries if a content source has been created that includes a start address for the data. SSP administrators for the search service must create and configure all content sources for business data, based on the data identified during planning.

When you add start addresses for business data, you must use a location that respects the security settings configured in the Business Data Catalog. For example, if the Business Data Catalog connects to a server containing a copy of data instead of the server that is running the line-of-business application, you must use the location of the copied data in the start address for the business data content source.

Use the following procedure to configure business data content sources.

Configure business data content sources

  1. Create one or more content sources for the data in line-of-business applications, using one start address per application. Use a start address that respects your security configuration.

  2. To use a crawling account other than the default content access account to crawl a particular business data start address, create a crawl rule for that start address. All content sources that include that start address will use that account.

  3. To change how a particular start address is crawled, configure a crawl rule for that start address.

  4. Crawl all business data content sources.

  5. Some properties for business data might appear as crawled properties in the search schema. Based on search schema planning, select relevant properties in the Configure Search section of the Business Data Catalog and map them to managed properties for search. These properties will be available for use during search queries.

  6. Crawl the content sources again to complete the mapping of managed properties.

Configure and customize query options for business data

After crawling business data content sources, the SSP administrator for the search service creates and configures shared search scopes for business data. Then site administrators create site search scopes and keywords, and configure relevance settings for queries performed on the sites that they manage.

Both SSP administrators and site administrators configure query options based on decisions made during planning for the initial deployment. Many of these settings will be changed as part of regular operations, but it is helpful to configure the initial query options for your deployment of Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Use the following procedure to configure the initial query options.

Configure initial query options

  1. Create shared search scopes for business data (SSP administrator).

  2. Create site-specific search scopes for business data (site administrators).

  3. Configure keywords for business data (site administrators).

  4. Configure relevance settings (site administrators).

  5. Customize the Search Center tabs for business data.

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See Also

Concepts

Configure access to business data
Register business applications in the Business Data Catalog