Use Dropbox As a Content Source

SearchUnify can crawl, index, and search your Dropbox data. This article explains how to start using Dropbox as a content repository for your search clients.

PERMISSIONS

• The person authenticating the content source can index the files they have access to.

• SearchUnify respects user permissions when the authentication happens from a Business Account.

Establish a Connection

1. Navigate to Content Sources.

   

2. Click Add New Content Source.

   

3. Use search to find "Dropbox" and click Add.

   

4. Give your content source a Name and select content language. English is the default selection.

   

5. Select anAccount Type. You can pick either Personal or Business.

   

6. If you selected Personal, then click Connect now and move to the next section.
7. If you selected Business, then enter Client Secret and Client ID. After that, click Connect. Instructions to obtain the client ID and secret are on Get Your Dropbox Client ID and Client Secret.

   

8. OPTIONAL. Click Continue if a security warning appears.

   

9. Allow SearchUnify to access and index the files on your Dropbox account.

   

10. Click Next.

    

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 Types and Fields for Indexing

SearchUnify can index Dropbox Files. The files with .paper extension are crawled under the File object.

1. Click  for either paper or file to select content fields for indexing.

   

2. Add or remove content fields and press Apply.

   

3. Navigate to By Folders.

   

4. Hop between Mine Folders and Share Folders to select directories and documents for indexing.

   

5. Press Save.

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.

NOTE 1

Review the settings in Rules if there is no progress in Crawl Logs.

NOTE 2

For Mamba '22 and newer instances, search isn't impacted during a crawl. However, in older instances, some documents remain inaccessible while a crawl is going on.

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. Use the Frequency dropdown to select how often SearchUnify should index the data. For illustration, the frequency has been set to Weekly and Tuesday has been chosen as the crawling day. Whenever the Frequency is other than Never, a third dropdown appears where you can specify the interval. Also, whenever Frequency is set to Hourly, then manual crawls are disabled.

   

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

   

Known Bug

Although you can set up a frequency crawl, it doesn't function for Dropbox.

Data Deletion and SU Index

Deleted files and folders are removed from the SearchUnify index during frequency crawling.