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Microsoft Graph connectors enable your organization to connect your islands of information to Microsoft 365 so you can find what you need wherever you’re working, whether in one of your favorite productivity apps or one of the many Microsoft 365 services such as SharePoint or Office.com or Bing.com.
Graph connectors bring together information from disparate systems, on-premises and in the cloud along with your information in Microsoft 365 making it easier than ever to find what you need, when you need it. With Microsoft Graph connectors, you can simply bring information from SaaS systems such as ServiceNow or Salesforce etc. or an on-prem file-share or on-prem SQL server into Microsoft 365. Microsoft Search eliminates the need to recall where information is, mitigates costly context switching, and takes advantage of the global perspective provided by the Microsoft Graph.
Keep reading to learn more about Microsoft Graph connectors, how to get started, and what’s new & what’s next.
Getting started
Getting started with Microsoft Graph connectors is as easy a few clicks in the Search & intelligence admin center.
Explore our newly updated connectors gallery to find out more about connectors built by Microsoft and our partners at https://aka.ms/GraphConnectorsCatalog.
What’s new & what’s next?
New connectors
ServiceNow Catalog
Status: In preview, sign-up here to get access
ServiceNow connector currently allows you to index knowledge base articles in your organization. We are adding support for ServiceNow Catalog, which enables your organization to bring ServiceNow catalog items into Microsoft Search. This will help M365 users find the relevant information for all their goods and service needs. User criteria permissions are supported for security trimming for the Catalog content. You can also merge ServiceNow knowledge and catalog content in the same vertical as shown in the picture below. Find more details about the capabilities of this connector in our documentation page.
Confluence Cloud
Status: In preview, sign-up here to get access
With Confluence Cloud Graph Connector, you can index pages and blog posts and make them discoverable in Microsoft Search. Both space and page level permissions are supported to allow users to find accessible data in search results. You can choose to index required content with Confluence Query Language (CQL). Find more details about the capabilities of this connector in the documentation page Confluence docs.
Confluence page results in Microsoft Search in SharePoint.
Jira
Status: In preview, sign-up here to get access
With the Jira cloud Graph Connector, you can index all your Jira issues or tickets and search them from any of Microsoft Search endpoints. With Microsoft Search, your data is always secure with security trimming of search results. Only users who have access to Jira issues will be able to view them. You can index selective issues using advanced query support using Jira Query Language (JQL) and data filtering options provided by the connector. The connector also allows to index custom created fields as required by your organization. Find more details about the capabilities of this connector in the documentation page Jira docs.
What’s Next for Confluence and Jira?
Confluence and Jira connector for on-premises (server and datacenter) deployment is under development. It will be available for preview with selected customers by H2’ 2021.
SharePoint Server
Status: In preview, sign-up here to get access
SharePoint on-prem Graph Connector would help you bring your SharePoint on-prem content to Microsoft Search experience. We support SharePoint versions 2013, 2016 and 2019. SharePoint on-prem connector is Graph Connector Agent-based connector and has ability to crawl sites, site collections and document libraries. Your data is always secure with security trimming of search results. Only users who have access to data will be able to view them. We currently support basic authentication, if you have requirements to support additional auth scenarios, reach out to us and we would love to work with you.
CSV
Status: In preview soon, sign-up here to get access
The CSV Graph connector will soon enable you to ingest content from CSV files stored in SharePoint libraries (support for ADLS and FileShare coming soon) and make it searchable in any Microsoft Search entry point. Onboarding and testing out the overall graph connector platform end to end will be greatly simplified with this connector. Additionally, you will also be able to ingest people data like skills, certifications, projects, etc. from your HRMS systems with this connector, and get that to participate in profile enrichment scenarios.
CSV connector in Microsoft search in Bing.
Graph connector content in Windows search
Status: Preview coming soon
As we continue to innovate across the Microsoft Graph connector ecosystem, we are bringing graph connector search to Windows search box. Soon, you will be able to search third-party information ingested via Graph connectors from Windows search, in addition to existing locations to include Microsoft Search in Bing, SharePoint and Office.com.
Microsoft Search in Windows 11 Search Box.
Graph connector SDK
Status: In development, in preview by H2’ 2021. Sign-up here to get early access.
The Graph connectors SDK will enable you to create your own connector for your line-of-business (LOB) applications and index the data to Microsoft Graph to power scenarios like search. The SDK will provide you with the tools and utilities to help you build your LOB connector by writing minimal code. The SDK platform is being built on top of the same tried and tested platform that runs the existing Microsoft built connectors and will provide you an experience through the Microsoft Admin Center for configuring and monitoring these LOB connectors.
New capabilities: connectors & platform
Increased scale and throughput
Status: In preview, sign-up here to get access
As a result of continuous innovation across the platform, we are increasing per connection limit to 5M items, and higher . This will help you index larger data sources and crawl content faster than ever.
On-premises file share connector: file exclusion rules
Status: Available to all tenants world-wide
File-share connector enables you to index files from your On-prem windows file-shares so they can be searched using Microsoft Search. While you have millions of files in your file-shares, you may not want to index all of them. There might be very old files which are not used any more or there might be some files (e.g., old DOS .bat files) which you don’t want to index. Using exclusion rules feature you can limit the file-share connector from indexing these files. You can provide criteria based on any of the following attributes. Find more details on the file-share connector documentation page.
- File names
- File locations
- Time since last modification
File-share connector capability to exclude certain files.
Rule-based content enrichment for FileShare and ADLS
Status: In preview, sign-up here to get access
Rule-Based Content Enrichment enables you to add custom metadata and additional system metadata to your Connector content
You can now enrich your FileShare metadata by adding up to 3 additional custom metadata created by combining different regex expressions from the already existing properties. This additional form of enrichment should help increase the recall and help create custom filters for FileShare documents. This new feature should help admins unlock the rich metadata from existing properties like FilePath, Title, Authors etc. In addition, we support adding static text as a property value across the entire connection.
Profile enrichment with Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS)
Status: In preview, sign-up here to get access
Profile experiences are additional experiences built on top of graph connectors which empowers you to securely enrich your users’ profiles with data from your HRMS systems like SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, Oracle HCM etc. This information can then be used to power wide range of profile experiences like Profile cards, People search, Delve, etc.
You can now enrich your user profiles with information such as Skills, Projects, Interests, Job Title, Phone Numbers, etc. from any of your HRMS systems using Azure SQL, MS On Prem SQL, Oracle SQL & CSV connectors. Check out the detailed blog to know more about customizing your people experiences with Graph connectors & Azure AD data.
Sign-up for Preview
- To try out the Connectors & features in preview, please use this link to sign-up: https://aka.ms/GraphConnectorPreview
- To try profile enrichment feature using HRMS connectors, please use this link to sign-up.
- Early access to upcoming private preview of Graph Connectors SDK, please use this link.
Got Feedback?
Didn’t find the connector you are looking for? Need a connector for your organization or your Line of business app or anything else? Write to us: https://aka.ms/GraphConnectorsFeedback
Learn more about Graph Connectors
Documentation: Microsoft Graph Connectors Overview | Microsoft Docs
Graph Connectors gallery: Microsoft built connectors and Partner connectors
Videos
Graph connectors for Microsoft Search: What’s new
Getting started with Microsoft Graph connectors
Learn how to build Microsoft Graph connectors