Configure search integration

IBM Connections search integration in IBM WebSphere Portal allows users to perform search queries and view query results for Connections content within the context of their portal environment.

This integration point is enabled by configuring the portal search center component to include IBM Connections content as part of the related search results. You also must configure a component to allow the navigation from the portal search center to the portlets so that users can view the Connections-related search results.

Understand the search architecture

Portal currently provides the following two search frameworks. The one you use depends on whether you value performance or ease of maintenance.

• Search Service

  Search Service is a live search and uses REST (along with other technologies) to search on a target information source and fetch the matching results. Connections/Portal integration uses the "Remote Content Server Search Service Type" (referred to as RCSS type), using the ATOM/REST APIs exposed by Connections. This approach would tag relevance score of connections content, in isolation, to the portal relevance score. It is a federated approach in which the search is federated between Portal and Connections instances.

• Search Collections

  Search Collections use a seedlist framework to crawl, and index all of the Connections data locally on a Portal server. The advantage of this approach is that it removes extra network traffic to the Connections server during the search process, making information retrieval fast. One disadvantage is the crawler must run frequently to synchronize local content with all the latest content on the Connections server. It can do a better relevance ranking of search results, as search results (including Portal and Connections) are served by the Portal engine only.

Restriction: Currently, we must implement the search integration of Connections Content Manager Documents using the Search Service approach. The Search Collections method is not supported at this time.

See

• Deploy search integration prerequisites
  
• Configure search using Remote Content Server Search Service Type (RCSS)
  
• Configure a search collection
  
• Set the Search Scope
  

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Recommended configuration