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 already-created Content Source is opened for editing. An admin can edit a Content Source for multiple reasons, including:

• To reauthenticate

• To fix a crawl error

• To change frequency

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

When a Content Source is edited, either a Connect or a Re-Connect button is displayed.

Case 1: When the Connect button is displayed:

When the Connect button is displayed if the Content Source authentication is successful. Along with the button, a message is displayed There are no crawl errors and the Content Source authentication is valid.

Fig. The Connect button is displayed on the Authentication tab.

Case 2: When the Re-connect button is displayed:

The Re-connect button is displayed when the authentication details change or the authentication fails for any reason.

In both cases, the Content Source connection must be authenticated again. To reauthenticate a Content Source, enter the authentication details, and click Re-Connect.

Fig. The Re-Connect button is displayed on the Authentication tab.

Set Up Crawl Frequency

The first crawl is always performed manually after configuring the content source. In the Choose a Date field, select a date to start the crawl; only data created after the selected date will be crawled*. For now, leave the frequency set to its default value, Never, and click Set.

Fig. The Frequency tab when "Frequency" is set to "Never".

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 to 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 created or updated 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. Selecting 8 initiates content crawling 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 selected, the content source crawling starts at 3:00 p.m. (1500 hours) each 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 is recommended to pick a date between the 1st and 28th of the month. 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.

   

   Fig. The content source crawling starts at 00:00 on each Tuesday.

3. Click Set to save the crawl frequency settings.

   

4. Click Save.