Collections and Crawlers

Index collections are a new concept introduced in Perceptive Enterprise Search 10.5.

At it's highest level, an index collection is simply a list of indexes that are presented as a single searchable unit. However, collections offer several benefits over traditional indexes:

• Collections are automatically created to partition larger content sources
• Collection member indexes may be individually secured with their own permissions, allowing role-based searching of content subsets
• Indexes of large content sources are built in parallel by default
• Searching a part of the collection is easier and faster

Creating a collection

The process of creating a collection is done via the New Index wizard. Certain content sources will automatically create a collection, with default rules and routes.

For example, selecting Perceptive Content will create a collection with one member index per Drawer. These default settings may be modified after the collection has been created.

The following content sources will generate an index collection:

• Perceptive Content 7+
• Microsoft SharePoint 2010, 2013
• Microsoft Exchange 2010, 2013
• Lotus Domino
• Google Drive
• WebDAV
• FTP/SFTP

Configuring a collection

Once an index collection is created, you may modify the indexing options, routes and rules.

Crawler options specifies how to connect to remote system, including user credentials and host information. To modify crawler options:

1. Sign into the Perceptive Enterprise Search Administration Console
2. Navigate to Indexes > Collection Name \ Crawler Options

Securing a collection

Like regular indexes, collections may be secured to prevent unauthorized searching. To secure the collection:

1. Sign into the Perceptive Enterprise Search Administration Console
2. Navigate to Indexes > Collection Name \ Advanced \ Permissions
3. Click New Permission, and enter one or more groups or user names

Note: Permission rules are applied in order, it will use the first rule that matches either the user or user's groups. If you only want to allow specific users/groups, make sure the last rule is Deny All.

Collections also allow the individual member indexes it contains to be secured using the same rules system. If the user does not have permission to a given index, it will be automatically excluded when searching the collection as a whole. To secure a collection index:

1. Sign into the Perceptive Enterprise Search Administration Console
2. Navigate to Indexes > Collection Name \ Indexes \ Index Name \ Advanced \ Permissions
3. Click New Permission, and enter one or more groups or user names