Extend Microsoft Search with Service Now Graph Connector

 Introduction 

 
Microsoft Search shows the content that your organization has stored in the Microsoft 365 Tenant or indexed through connectors.
 


Service Now knowledge-base articles can also be visible to all users within your organization. After you complete the connector configuration, end users can search for those articles from any Microsoft Search client. 
 
In this article, we'll understand how to index the "Service Now " knowledge base article using Graph Connector in Microsoft Search Results. 



License Requirements
 
To view data from connectors in your search results, users must have one of the following Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscriptions:
  • Microsoft 365 or Office 365 Enterprise E3 or E5
  • Microsoft 365 or Office 365 Education A3 or A5
Let's start with the configuration steps.
 
Step 1 - Navigate to Connectors
  1. Go to Microsoft 365 admin center.
  2. In the navigation pane, go to Settings.
  3. Select > Microsoft Search.
  4. Select > Connectors
  5. Select > + Add


Step 2 - Select Azure DevOps as a Data Source
 
Microsoft has seven connectors available to connect with an external data source and several partners released connectors to connect with an external data source



Step 3 - Fill connection name details
  • Name (mandatory)
  • Connection Id (mandatory)
  • Description (optional)


Step 4 - Configure settings
 
To connect ServiceNow data, you need your organization's ServiceNow instance URL.
 
Your organization’s ServiceNow instance URL typically looks like https://<your-organization-domain>.service-now.com
 
To authenticate and sync content from ServiceNow, choose one of two supported methods:
  1. Basic authentication
  2. OAuth (recommended)
Note
For demo purposes, I used basic authentication.
 
To create a service now instance, you need to follow this link.



Step 5 - Configure Data
 
Select a project in the organization to crawl
 
Edit properties, if more properties need to added, click preview > next to proceed.


Step 6 - Manage Schema
 
You can choose which column can be set as Querable, Searchable & Retrieve. It is the same standard schema configuration as SharePoint Search.


Step 7 - Manage Search Permissions
 
You can choose to use the ACLs specified in the full crawl screen, or you can override them to make your content visible to everyone.



Step 8 - Content Refresh Settings
 
You can configure the incremental and full refresh intervals.


Step 9 - Review connection and complete
 
All defined configurations can be reviewed and modified here. Once it's complete, click Finish to proceed.



Step 10 - Review connection and complete
 
Wait for a couple of minutes and the connection content will full crawl. The connection state will also change from Publishing to Ready. Once the connection state is ready, two actions need to be performed in sequence:
1. Create Result Source.
2. Create Vertical.

 


Result Type
 
A search result type is a rule that causes distinct kinds of search results to be displayed in different ways. It consists of the following:
  • One or more conditions to compare each search result against, such as the content source of the search result.
  • A result layout to use for search results that meet the conditions. The resulting layout controls the way that all results that meet the conditions appear and behave on a search results page.
Step 11 - Result Type Section
 
Once you select create result type, follow the simple steps to follow a naming convention. Enter the result type name

Step 12 - Result Type Content Source
 
Select the appropriate content source so that crawled or configured data can be mapped properly.


Step 13 - Design Layout
 
These are the important steps to design your layout or adaptive rich card, which will be rendered into search results.
 
Once you click "Launch Layout Designer", it will navigate to https://searchlayoutdesigner.azurewebsites.net/



Step 14 - Search Layout Designer
 
Select a blank layout and design the required card.
 
Copy content from the Layout Payload editor and paste it into step no. 13.



Layout payload editor added to the GitHub link here
 
Review the result type configuration and proceed to Vertical creation to map with defined result type.
 
Manage Vertical
 
Verticals make it easier for users to find the information that they have permission to see.
 
You can add search verticals that are relevant to your organization. These will appear on the Microsoft Search results page in SharePoint, Office, and Bing.
 
Before you start, make sure that the connector has been indexed. This can take up to 48 hours, depending on the file size.
 
You can’t create a vertical for content that resides in SharePoint.
 
There are three basic steps to add a vertical:
  1. Create the vertical. In this step, you define the vertical’s name, content source, and scope of the content to search.
  2. Define what the results for this vertical will look like.
  3. Enable the vertical (to be displayed) from the vertical list page.
Step 15 - Create Vertical
 
In the navigation pane, go to custom connector and then select the Verticals Link.
 
To add a vertical, select Add, or to edit a vertical, select it in the list.
 
Remember that verticals are created in a disabled state. They must be enabled before users can see them.


Step 17 - Connect Vertical with Content Source


Add the required Query section as it is an optional section. Proceed to review, Add, and Enable vertical via the following screens.
 
Outcome
 
Service Now Data Screen Shot



Finally, we receive the Output in Microsoft Search




Same article published here also

I hope you have enjoyed and learned something new in this article. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next article!

Join me at Microsoft 365 Saturday Gurgaon 2020 Virtual Event at 19 September

Microsoft Search with Graph Connector

Microsoft Search shows the content that your organization has stored in Microsoft 365 Tenant or indexed through connectors.

I will speaking about Microsoft Search with Graph Connector with couple of cool demos. Please register and join me here


Session Topic : Microsoft Search with Graph Connector

Date and Time :  19th September 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM IST

Event Mode: Virtual & Free 




Breakout Sessions:

Developer Track (Room 1):

  1. Developing SharePoint Framework Solutions for the Enterprise - 10:30 AM | 60 min (Nanddeep Nachan - Microsoft MVP, Smita Nachan, Aakash Bhardwaj)
  2. Microsoft Search with Microsoft Graph Connectors - 11:30 AM | 60 min (Manoj Mittal - C# Corner MVP, Sekhar Bestha)
  3. What's New in Microsoft Teams Platform - 12:30 PM | 60 min (Arvind Sankarasubramanian, Senior Program Manager, Teams Engineering, Microsoft)
  4. Building multilingual Communication sites in SharePoint Online - 01:30 PM | 60 min (Jayakumar Balasubramaniam - C# Corner MVP, Pavithra Murugesan)
  5. Azure DevOps using Microsoft Teams 02:30 PM | 60 min (Kiran Gudipudi Senior Program Manager, Microsoft)
  6. No code solution to deploy your SharePoint Home site or Hub-site to Microsoft Teams as Personal tab - 03:30 PM | 60 min (Lalit Mohan)
  7. Task-oriented interactions in Microsoft Teams with messaging extensions - 04:30 PM | 60 min (Kirti Prajapati &Jenkins NS - Microsoft MVP)
  8. Customizing Profile Cards Using Microsoft Graph - 05:30 PM | 60 min (Sathish Nadarajan, Microsoft MVP)
  9. Your Intelligent Workplace with Microsoft Teams and AI Builder 06:30 PM | 60 min (Nicole Enders)
  10. Microsoft 365 – Exploring Microsoft Graph Toolkit 07:30 PM | 60 min (Prasham Sabadra)
  11. Implementing Microsoft Teams Governance using Power Automate, Microsoft Graph APIs and SharePoint 08:30 PM | 60 min (Prashant G Bhoyar)
  12. Intro to AI with Azure and Office 365 - 09:30 PM | 60 min (Jason Rivera)
  13. Create your personal Assistant with Microsoft Bot Framework Composer 10:30 PM | 60 min (Martin Gudel)
  14. Building Performant Power Apps 11:30 PM | 60 min (Reza Dorrani, Microsoft MVP)

IT Pro Track (Room 2):

  1. Become a Microsoft Teams rockstar - 10:30 AM | 60 min (Gokan Ozcifci, Microsoft MVP & RD)
  2. How to digitally enable Firstline workers with Teams 11:30 AM | 60 min (Aryak Singh & Srinidy Ravichandran - Program Managers, Teams Engineering Microsoft)
  3. Sensitivity labels in Microsoft 365 - 12:30 PM | 60 min (NarasimaPerumal Chandramohan - Microsoft MVP, Vinodha Ramji)
  4. Advance Data Governance in Office 365 - 01:30 PM | 60 min (Gaurav Dixit, Dushyant Sharma)
  5. Return to workplace solution - 02:30 PM | 60 min (Kishan Dubal, Shreyash Naithani - Software Engineer, Microsoft)
  6. SharePoint Spaces discovery: How to create a 3D entry space for your next company event ? - 03:30 PM | 60 min (Patrick Guimonet, Microsoft MVP)
  7. What's new and what's next: SharePoint and OneDrive administration - 04:30 PM | 60 min (Rk Menon, Karthik Gangidi, Sonia Gupta - Program Managers, SharePoint & OneDrive Engineering, Microsoft)
  8. Microsoft Lists - Share and track information across Microsoft 365 05:30 PM | 60 min (Saurabh Sood, Senior Program Manager & Shreyansh Agrawal, Senior Software Engineer, SharePoint & OneDrive Engineering, Microsoft)
  9. Security v Usability | The balance - 06:30 PM | 60 min (Marijn Somers, Microsoft MVP, Steve Dalby)
  10. Project Cortex: AI Powered Knowledge Network 07:30 PM | 60 min (Joel Oleson, Microsoft MVP & RD)
  11. OneDrive Group Policies - Not only for the Enterprise - 08:30 PM | 60 min (Hans Brender, Microsoft MVP)
  12. Personnal and confidential data - how to manage them in O365 - 09:30 PM | 60 min (Sébastien PAULET, Microsoft MVP)
  13. Navigating you way to different admin centres in Microsoft 365 - 10:30 PM | 60 min (Chirag Patel, Microsoft MVP)
  14. Why (and How) my SP2013 IA needs to be redesigned for the future? - 11:30 PM | 60 min (Jay Leask)



Microsoft Search With Azure DevOps Graph Connector

 Microsoft Search shows the content that your organization has stored in Microsoft 365 Tenant or indexed through connectors.

 



Microsoft Graph connectors can index third-party data to appear in Microsoft Search results. The third-party data can be hosted on-premises or in the public or private clouds. Connectors expand the types of content sources that are searchable in your Microsoft 365 productivity apps and the broader Microsoft ecosystem.
 
In this article, let's understand how to index "Azure DevOps" items using Graph Connector into Microsoft Search Results.
 
Note
The Azure DevOps connector supports only the Azure DevOps cloud service.



License requirements
 
To view data from connectors in your search results, users must have one of the following Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscriptions,
  • Microsoft 365 or Office 365 Enterprise E3 or E5
  • Microsoft 365 or Office 365 Education A3 or A5
Lets start configuration steps,
 
Step 1 - Navigate to Connectors
  1. Go to Microsoft 365 admin center.
  2. In the navigation pane, go to Settings.
  3. Select > Microsoft Search.
  4. Select > Connectors
  5. Select > + Add


Step 2 - Select Azure DevOps as data source
 
Microsoft has seven connector avaible to connect with external datasource and several partner released connector to connect with external datasource.


Step 3 - Fill connection name details
  • Name (mandatory)
  • Connection Id (mandatory)
  • Description (Optional)

Step 4 - Configure settings
 
AzureDevOps Organization -> Login to https://dev.azure.com and sign in with your orgnaization account. You can create new organization name or use existing one if exists.
 
Select Authentication Type as "Work or School Account"
 
You must register an app in AzureDevOps so that Microsoft search app can access the instance. Do use below information to complete the registration.
 
Navigate to https://app.vsaex.visualstudio.com/app/register
 
S.NOFieldsValuesDescription
1Company NameUse Appropriate NameThis is the name of your company.
2Application NameMicrosoft SearchThis unique value identifies the application that you're authorizing.
3Application Websitehttps://gcs.office.com/This required field is the URL of the application that will request access to your Azure DevOps instance during connector setup.
4Authorization Callback Urlhttps://gcs.office.com/v1.0/admin/oauth/callbackA required callback URL that the authorization server redirects to.
5Authorized ScopeSelect the following scopes: Identity (read), Work Items (read), Variable Groups (read), Project and team (read), Graph (read)This is the scope of access for the application
 
As configuration details complete, you will navigate to below details; i.e. App ID & Client Secret.
 
Extend Microsoft Search With Azure DevOps Graph Connector
Add generated App ID and Client Secret to complete authentication process.



Step 5 - Configure Data
 
Select project in the organization to crawl
 
Edit property, if  you need to add more properties click preview > Next to proceed. 


Step 6 - Manage Schema
 
You can choose which column can be set as Queryable, Searchable & Retrievable.  It is standard schema configuration as SharePoint Search.


Step 7 - Manage Search Permission
 
You can choose to use the ACLs specified in the full crawl screen or you can override them to make your content visible to everyone



Step 8 - Content Refresh Settings
 
You can configure the incremental and full refresh interval.



Step 9 - Review connection and complete
 
All defined configurations can be reviewed and modified here. Once it completes, click to finish to proceed.



Step 10 - Review connection and complete
 
Wait for a couple of minutes and connection state will change from Publishing to Ready. Once connection state is ready, two actions need to be performed in sequence,
  1. Create Result Source.
  2. Create Vertical.


Result Type 
 
A search result type is a rule that causes distinct kinds of search results to be displayed in different ways. It consists of the following,
  • One or more conditions to compare each search result against, such as the content source of the search result.
  • A result layout to use for search results that meet the conditions. The result layout controls the way that all results that meet the conditions appear and behave on a search results page.
Step 11 - Result Type Section
 
Once you select create result type, there will be simple steps to follow such as naming convention and entering the result type



Step 12 - Result Type Content Source
 
Select appropriate content source, so that crawled or configured data can be mapped properly.

Step 13 - Design Layout
 
Once you click "Launch Layout Designer", it will navigate to https://searchlayoutdesigner.azurewebsites.net/



Step 14 - Search Layout Designer
 
Select blank layout and design the required card.
 
Copy content from Layout Payload editor and paste into step no. 13.


Layout payload editor added to github link here
 
Step 15 - Review the resut type settings
 
Review the result type configuration and proceed to Vertical creation to map with defined result type.


Manage Vertical
 
Verticals make it easier for users to find the information that they have permission to see.
 
You can add search verticals that are relevant to your organization. These will appear on the Microsoft Search results page in SharePoint, Office, and Bing.
 
Before you start, make sure that the connector has been indexed. This can take up to 48 hours, depending on the file size.
 
You can’t create a vertical for content that resides in SharePoint.
 
There are three basic steps to add a vertical,
  1. Create the vertical. In this step, you define the vertical’s name, content source, and scope of the content to search.
  2. Define what the results for this vertical will look like.
  3. Enable the vertical (to be displayed) from the vertical list page.
Step 16 - Create Vertical
 
In the navigation pane, go to custom connector, and then select the Verticals Link.
 
To add a vertical, select Add. Or, to edit a vertical, select it in the list.
 
Remember, verticals are created in a disabled state. They must be enabled before users can see them.

Step 17 - Connect Vertical with Content Source


Step 18 - Review and Add Vertical



Outcome
 
Azure Devops Data Screen Shot,





Microsoft Search Result from DevOps,


Related Article:-


I hope you have enjoyed and learned something new in this article. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next article.