User Account Requirements 

In order to access SharePoint web services (including the Aspire for SharePoint web service), an Active Directory Windows User account with sufficient privileges must be supplied. You may have a different account per URL if required.

If crawling SharePoint with the Aspire SharePoint Web Services Extension installed, the account must at least have:

• Full Read (Web Application)

This permission will allow the user to read last modification dates of documents and sites and will allow for incremental indexing of SharePoint content.

• Contribute (Site Collection)

  The connector won’t modify any content on the sites, but there are specific permissions implicit on the Contribute permission level that are required to fetch ACLs and browse folders (for instance, the 'Browse directories' permission).

  • For more information:
    • Webs.GetWebCollection Web Method
• Custom Permission (Site Collection)

In case you can't assign the Contribute permission to the crawl account, there's also the option to create a custom permission with enough privileges to be able to use the Aspire Web Service Extension. To find more info on how to create this permission go to the custom permission tutorial.

If running with standard web services only, the account must be granted with:

• Full Read access provided at Web Application Level
• Design permission level on site collection

In both cases, it is recommended the account be the site collection administrator. See SharePoint Access Rights tutorial for more info on how to set this permissions.

Windows or Linux

The Aspire SharePoint connector can run on either Windows or Linux. It uses web services over HTTP or HTTPS to communicate with SharePoint.

Standard or Extended SharePoint Web Services

Standard SharePoint web services do not have all of the features necessary to crawl SharePoint with full document level security and full hierarchical metadata. If you need these features, you will need to install a SharePoint web service extension for Aspire on your SharePoint front ends. Go to SharePoint Web Services Extension for information on installing the web service extension.

If you do not need these features, the Aspire SharePoint connector will work without it. Just select "Use Standard Web Services" when you install the SharePoint connector application into Aspire.

Additional Features Provided with the Extended Web Service

The following features will be available if you install the extended web service:

• Security ACLs will be available for folders and documents.

  Without the extension, security information will be retrieved for only for sites and lists, and their ACLs will be automatically propagated to all of the items they contain. Individual document-level security ACLs will not be available.

• URL provided to the connector can be from any site or sub-site, list or folder.

  Without the extension, the URL must be a site collection URL.

• The account used to run the connector will need fewer access rights.
• Hierarchical information required for Aspire Corporate Wide Sitemap will be available.

  This is used to implement the Aspire Corporate-Wide Sitemap feature.

• Site Collection Discovery