Use D2L Brightspace as a Content Source

Brightspace by D2L is a cloud-based online learning platform. It provides a suite of software to develop tutorials, courses, and other learning collateral. To crawl and index your Brightspace instance data, add it as a content source. This article walks you through the process of adding D2L Brightspace as a content source.

Prerequisites

• Brightspace instance login credentials, preferably admin account credentials.

• An OAuth 2.0 App for SearchUnify and its Client ID and Client Secret. More information: Obtaining D2L Brightspace Client ID and Client Secret.

Establish a Connection

1. Navigate to Content Sources and click Add New Content Sources.

   

3. Under the Authentication tab, enter the following details:

   • Name. Give your content source a name.

   • Client URL. Enter https://auth.brightspace.com.

   • Language. Select the language of your Brightspace content.

   • Client ID. Enter the client ID for the app you have created. More information: Obtaining D2L Brightspace Client ID and Client Secret

   • Client Secret. Enter the client secret for the app you created. More information: Obtaining D2L Brightspace Client ID and Client Secret

   • Base URL. Enter community.desire2learn.com.

   

4. After entering the required details, click Connect.

5. You will be redirected to log into your Brightspace community. Use your credentials to log in. After the login is successful, click Next on the Connection Successful screen.

Now you can set a crawling frequency.

Re-Connect

The Authentication screen is displayed when an existing Content Source is opened for editing, as given below. An admin can edit a Content Source for multiple reasons:

• To reauthenticate

• To fix a crawl error

• To change frequency

• To add or remove an object or a field for crawling

• For multiple other reasons

When you edit a Content Source, there can be any one of two cases as listed below:

If the Content Source authentication is successful; a Connected message is displayed.

Case 1: There are no crawl errors and the Content Source authentication is valid.

If the Content Source authentication fails or is disrupted; a Re-Connect button is displayed.

There is a crawl error or the authentication details have changed. In both cases, the SearchUnify Content Source connection must be authenticated again i.e. re-authenticated. To authenticate a Content Source again, enter the authentication details, and click Re-Connect.

Set Up Crawl Frequency

The first crawl is always manual and is performed after configuring the content source. In Choose A Date, select a date to start crawling; the data created after the selected date will be crawled. For now, keep the frequency to its default value Never and click Set and move to the next section.

Select Content types for Indexing

Select the object and fields for indexing after establishing a connection and configuring frequency. Currently, only the Content object is supported.

1. Under the Rules tab, go to the the By Content Type subtab. You can see the content object listed here. Click to view the pre-configured content fields. You can edit or remove them according to your requirements.

   

   NOTE. It is, however, not advised to changes, if you aren't an admin.

2. When you switch to the By Categories subtab, use the alphabetical index to find spaces.

3. Use the checkbox to pick the selected categories for indexing. Once you have selected the categories, click Save.

You can now proceed with the manual crawl.

After the First Crawl

Return to the Content Sources screen and click in Actions. The number of indexed documents is updated after the crawl is complete. You can view crawl progress in in Actions. Documentation on crawl progress is in View Crawl Logs.

Once the first crawl is complete, click in Actions open the content source for editing, and set a crawl frequency.

1. In Choose a Date, click to fire up a calendar and select a date. Only the data after the selected date is indexed.

   

2. The following options are available for the Frequency field:

   • When Never is selected, the content source is not crawled until an admin opts for a manual crawl on the Content Sources screen.

   • When Minutes is selected, a new dropdown appears where the admin can choose between three values: 15, 20, and 30. Picking 20 means that the content source crawling starts every 20 minutes.

   • When Hours is selected, a new dropdown is displayed where the admin can choose between eight values between 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 24. Picking 8 means that the content source crawling starts every 8 hours.

   • When Daily is selected, a new dropdown is displayed where the admin can pick a value between 0 and 23. If 15 is chosen, then the content source crawling starts at 03 p.m. or 1500 hours every single day.

   • When Day of Week is selected, a new dropdown is displayed where the admin can pick a day of the week. If Tuesday is chosen, then content source crawling starts at 0000 hours on every Tuesday.

   • When Day of Month is selected, a new dropdown appears where the admin can select a value between 1 and 30. If 20 is chosen, then content source crawling starts on the 20th of each month.

     It’s recommended to pick a date in the range 1-28. If 30 is chosen, then the crawler may throw an error in February. The error will be “Chosen date will not work for this month.”

   • When Yearly is selected, the content source crawling starts at midnight on 1 January each year.

   

3. Click Set to save crawl frequency settings. On clicking Set, you are taken to the Rules tab.