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Step 1. Launch Aspire and open the Content Source Management page

Launch Aspire (if it's not already running).

For details on using the Aspire Content Source Management page, refer to Admin UI


Step 2. Add a new Azure Table content source

To specify exactly what shared folder to crawl, we will need to create a new "Content Source".

To create a new content source:

  1. From the Content Source , click on "Add Source" button.
  2. Click on "Aspire AzureTable Source".


Step 2a. Specify basic information

In the "General" tab in the Content Source Configuration window, specify basic information for the content source:

  1. Enter a content source name in the "Name" field. 
    1. This is any useful name which you decide is a good name for the source. It will be displayed in the content source page, in error messages, etc.
  2. Click on the Scheduled pulldown list and select one of the following: Manually, PeriodicallyDaily, Weekly or Advanced.
    1. Aspire can automatically schedule content sources to be crawled on a set schedule, such as once a day, several times a week, or periodically (every N minutes or hours).For the purposes of this tutorial, you may want to select Manually and then set up a regular crawling schedule later.
  3. Click on the Action pulldown list to select one of the following: Start, StopPause, or Resume.
    1. This is the action that will be performed for that specific schedule.
  4. Click on the Crawl pulldown list and select one of the following: FullReal Time, or Cache Groups.
    1. This will be the type of crawl to execute for that specific schedule.

After selecting a Scheduled, specify the details, if applicable:

  • Manually: No additional options.
  • Periodically: Specify the "Run every:" options by entering the number of "hours" and "minutes."
  • Daily: Specify the "Start time:" by clicking on the hours and minutes drop-down lists and selecting options.
  • Weekly: Specify the "Start time:" by clicking on the hours and minutes drop-down lists and selecting options, then clicking on the day checkboxes to specify days of the week to run the crawl.
  • Advanced: Enter a custom CRON Expression (e.g. 0 0 0 ? * *)

 

You can add more schedules by clicking in the Add New option, and rearrange the order of the schedules.
If you want to disable the content source just unselect the the "Enable" checkbox. This is useful if the folder will be under maintenance and no crawls are wanted during that period of time.
Real Time and Cache Groups crawl will be available depending of the connector.


  

ep 2b. Specify the connector information


In the "Connector" tab, specify the connection information to crawl the Azure Table.

  1. Endpoint protocol: The protocol (http or https) is obtained from Table Endpoint or by reviewing the endpoint in the Azure portal, Connection String option.
  2. Account name: Unique name to identify your Azure Cosmos DB account. The account name can use only lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens ('-'), and must be between 3 and 44 characters long.
  3. Account key: One of the key from the Azure Connection String Configuration tab.
  4. Table endpoint: The URI from the Azure Connection String Configuration tab.
  5. You can check Crawl all tables in the server or specify the tables you want to crawl. In Azure Table connector do not have the option to insert multiple databases, this is because when you create an account in Azure CosmosDB with Azure Table, creates a single database by default, and within that database you can create all the tables that you want. It's for that reason that only Tables are requested and the database name is requested once.
  6.  Crawl Specific tables:
    1. Table name: The name of the table you want to crawl.


  1. Limit extracted rows: Enable fields to limit how many rows are selected from the table.
  2. Limit: Number of rows to be selected.
  3. Perform sampling: This option means that the retrieved records will be picked randomly. If check this option consider that the performance could be affected when querying large tables.








Step 2c. Specify workflow information

In the "Workflow" tab, specify the workflow steps for the jobs that come out of the crawl. Drag and drop rules to determine which steps should an item follow after being crawled. This rules could be where to publish the document or transformations needed on the data before sending it to a search engine. See Workflow for more information.

  1. For the purpose of this tutorial, drag and drop the Publish To File rule found under the Publishers tab to the onPublish Workflow tree.
    1. Specify a Name and Description for the Publisher.
    2. Click Add.

After completing this steps click on the Save then Done and you'll be sent back to the Home Page.

During the Crawl

During the crawl, you can do the following:
  • Click on the "Refresh" button on the Content Sources page to view the latest status of the crawl.

    The status will show RUNNING while the crawl is going, and CRAWLED when it is finished.

  • Click on "Complete" to view the number of documents crawled so far, the number of documents submitted, and the number of documents with errors.

If there are errors, you will get a clickable "Error" flag that will take you to a detailed error message page.