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Google Search Appliance Connectors Deploying the Connector for SharePoint User Profiles User Manual

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Overview of the GSA Connector for SharePoint User Profiles

The Connector for SharePoint User Profiles enables you to crawl and index information
about users in the SharePoint User Profile Service Application. Once the search appliance
has indexed this information, it can use it in the expert search feature.

Expert search enables your users to find experts in your organization by searching on
keywords. For detailed information about this feature, see the

help page for Search >

Search Features > Expert Search

.


A single instance of the Connector for SharePoint User Profiles can have GSA index a single
SharePoint web application. Each SharePoint web application can share the same
SharePoint User Profile Service application.

The following diagram provides an overview of how the search appliance gets content (user
profiles) from SharePoint through the connector. For explanations of the numbers in the
process, see the steps following the diagram.

1. The Connector for SharePoint starts communicating with the repository by

presenting authentication credentials.

2. The repository sends a limited number of Doc IDs of documents in the repository to

the connector.

3. The connector constructs URLs from the Doc IDs and pushes it to the search

appliance in a metadata-and-URL feed. Take note that this feed does not include the
document contents.