SharePoint connector V1.0 - Amazon Kendra
Supported featuresPrerequisitesConnection instructionsLearn more

SharePoint connector V1.0

SharePoint is a collaborative website building service that you can use to customize web content and create pages, sites, document libraries, and lists. If you are a SharePoint user, you can use Amazon Kendra to index your SharePoint data source.

Note

SharePoint connector V1.0 / SharePointConfiguration API ended in 2023. We recommend migrating to or using SharePoint connector V2.0 / TemplateConfiguration API.

For troubleshooting your Amazon Kendra SharePoint data source connector, see Troubleshooting data sources.

Supported features

  • Field mappings

  • User access control

  • Inclusion/exclusion filters

  • Change log

  • Virtual private cloud (VPC)

Prerequisites

Before you can use Amazon Kendra to index your SharePoint data source, make these changes in your SharePoint and AWS accounts.

You are required to provide authentication credentials, which you securely store in an AWS Secrets Manager secret.

Note

We recommend that you regularly refresh or rotate your credentials and secret. Provide only the necessary access level for your own security. We do not recommend that you re-use credentials and secrets across data sources, and connector versions 1.0 and 2.0 (where applicable).

In SharePoint, make sure you have:

  • Noted the URL of the SharePoint sites you want to index.

  • For SharePoint Online:

    • Noted your basic authentication credentials containing a user name and password with site admin permissions.

    • Optional: Generated OAuth 2.0 credentials containing a user name, password, client ID, and client secret.

    • Deactivated Security Defaults in your Azure portal using an administrative user. For more information on managing security default settings in the Azure portal, see Microsoft documentation on how to enable/disable security defaults.

  • For SharePoint Server:

    • Noted your SharePoint Server domain name (the NetBIOS name in your Active Directory). You use this, along with your SharePoint basic authentication user name and password, to connect SharePoint Server to Amazon Kendra.

    Note

    If you use SharePoint Server and need to convert your Access Control List (ACL) to email format for filtering on user context, provide the LDAP server URL and LDAP search base. Or you can use the directory domain override. The LDAP server URL is the full domain name and the port number (for example, ldap://example.com:389). The LDAP search base are the domain controllers 'example' and 'com'. With the directory domain override, you can use the email domain instead of using LDAP server URL and LDAP search base. For example, the email domain for username@example.com is 'example.com'. You can use this override if you aren't concerned about validating your domain and simply want to use your email domain.

  • Added the following permissions to your SharePoint account:

    For SharePoint lists

    • Open Items—View the source of documents with server-side file handlers.

    • View Application Pages—View forms, views, and application pages. Enumerate lists.

    • View Items—View items in lists and documents in document libraries.

    • View Versions—View past versions of a list item or document.

    For SharePoint websites

    • Browse Directories—Enumerate files and folders in a website using SharePoint Designer and Web DAV interface.

    • Browse User Information—View information about users of the website.

    • Enumerate Permissions—Enumerate permissions on the website, list, folder, document, or list item.

    • Open—Open a website, list, or folder to access items inside the container.

    • Use Client Integration Features—Use SOAP, WebDAV, the client object model, or SharePoint Designer interfaces to access the website.

    • Use Remote Interfaces—Use features that launch client applications.

    • View Pages—View pages on a website.

  • Checked each document is unique in SharePoint and across other data sources you plan to use for the same index. Each data source that you want to use for an index must not contain the same document across the data sources. Document IDs are global to an index and must be unique per index.

In your AWS account, make sure you have:

  • Created an Amazon Kendra index and, if using the API, noted the index ID.

  • Created an IAM role for your data source and, if using the API, noted the ARN of the IAM role.

    Note

    If you change your authentication type and credentials, you must update your IAM role to access the correct AWS Secrets Manager secret ID.

  • Stored your SharePoint authentication credentials in an AWS Secrets Manager secret and, if using the API, noted the ARN of the secret.

    Note

    We recommend that you regularly refresh or rotate your credentials and secret. Provide only the necessary access level for your own security. We do not recommend that you re-use credentials and secrets across data sources, and connector versions 1.0 and 2.0 (where applicable).

If you don’t have an existing IAM role or secret, you can use the console to create a new IAM role and Secrets Manager secret when you connect your SharePoint data source to Amazon Kendra. If you are using the API, you must provide the ARN of an existing IAM role and Secrets Manager secret, and an index ID.

Connection instructions

To connect Amazon Kendra to your SharePoint data source you must provide details of your SharePoint credentials so that Amazon Kendra can access your data. If you have not yet configured SharePoint for Amazon Kendra see Prerequisites.

Console

To connect Amazon Kendra to SharePoint

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon Kendra console.

  2. From the left navigation pane, choose Indexes and then choose the index you want to use from the list of indexes.

    Note

    You can choose to configure or edit your User access control settings under Index settings.

  3. On the Getting started page, choose Add data source.

  4. On the Add data source page, choose SharePoint connector v1.0, and then choose Add data source.

  5. On the Specify data source details page, enter the following information:

    1. In Name and description, for Data source name—Enter a name for your data source. You can include hyphens but not spaces.

    2. (Optional) Description—Enter an optional description for your data source.

    3. In Default language—Choose a language to filter your documents for the index. Unless you specify otherwise, the language defaults to English. Language specified in the document metadata overrides the selected language.

    4. In Tags, for Add new tag—Include optional tags to search and filter your resources or track your AWS costs.

    5. Choose Next.

  6. On the Define access and security page, enter the following information:

    1. For Hosting method—Choose between SharePoint Online and SharePoint Server.

      1. For SharePoint Online—Enter the Site URLs specific to your SharePoint repository.

      2. For SharePoint Server—Choose your SharePoint version, enter Site URLs specific to your SharePoint repository, and enter the Amazon S3 path to your SSL certificate location.

    2. (SharePoint Server only) For Web proxy—Enter the Host name and Port number of your internal SharePoint instance. The port number should be a numeric value between 0 and 65535.

    3. For Authentication—Choose between the following options based on your use case:

      1. For SharePoint Online—Choose between Basic authentication and OAuth 2.0 authentication.

      2. For SharePoint Server—Choose between None, LDAP, and Manual.

    4. For AWS Secrets Manager secret—Choose an existing secret or create a new Secrets Manager secret to store your SharePoint authentication credentials. If you choose to create a new secret an AWS Secrets Manager secret window opens. You must enter a Secret name. The prefix ‘AmazonKendra-SharePoint-’ is automatically added to your secret name.

    5. Enter following other information in the Create an AWS Secrets Manager secret window:

      1. Choose from the following SharePoint Cloud authentication options, based on your use case:

        1. Basic authentication—Enter your SharePoint account user name as User name and SharePoint account password as Password.

        2. OAuth 2.0 authentication—Enter your SharePoint account user name as User name, SharePoint account password as Password, your auto-generated unique SharePoint ID as Client ID, and the shared secret string used by both SharePoint and Amazon Kendra as Client secret.

      2. Choose from the following SharePoint Server authentication options, based on your use case:

        1. None—Enter your SharePoint account user name as User name, your SharePoint account password as Password, and your Server Domain Name.

        2. LDAP—Enter your SharePoint account user name as User name, SharePoint account password as Password, your LDAP Server Endpoint (including protocol and port number, for example ldap://example.com:389), and your LDAP Search Base (for example, dc=example, dc=com).

        3. Manual—Enter your SharePoint account user name as User name, your SharePoint account password as Password, and your Email Domain Override (email domain of directory user or group).

      3. Choose Save.

    6. Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)— You must also add Subnets and VPC security groups.

      Note

      You must use a VPC if you use SharePoint Server. Amazon VPC is optional for other SharePoint versions.

    7. IAM role—Choose an existing IAM role or create a new IAM role to access your repository credentials and index content.

      Note

      IAM roles used for indexes cannot be used for data sources. If you are unsure if an existing role is used for an index or FAQ, choose Create a new role to avoid errors.

    8. Choose Next.

  7. On the Configure sync settings page, enter the following information:

    1. Use Change log—Select to update your index instead of syncing all your files.

    2. Crawl attachments—Select to crawl attachments.

    3. Use local group mappings—Select to make sure that documents are properly filtered.

    4. Additional configuration—Add regular expression patterns to include or exclude certain files. You can add up to 100 patterns.

    5. In Sync run schedule for Frequency—How often Amazon Kendra will sync with your data source.

    6. Choose Next.

  8. On the Set field mappings page, enter the following information:

    1. Amazon Kendra default field mappings—Select from the Amazon Kendra generated default data source fields you want to map to your index.

    2. For Custom field mappings—Add custom data source fields to create an index field name to map to and the field data type.

    3. Choose Next.

  9. On the Review and create page, check that the information you have entered is correct and then select Add data source. You can also choose to edit your information from this page. Your data source will appear on the Data sources page after the data source has been added successfully.

API

To connect Amazon Kendra to SharePoint

You must specify the following using SharePointConfiguration API:

  • SharePoint Version—Specify the SharePoint version you use when configuring SharePoint. This is the case no matter if you use SharePoint Server 2013, SharePoint Server 2016, SharePoint Server 2019, or SharePoint Online.

  • Secret Amazon Resource Name (ARN)—Provide the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of a Secrets Manager secret that contains the authentication credentials you created in your SharePoint account.The secret is stored in a JSON structure.

    For SharePoint Online basic authentication, the following is the minimum JSON structure that must be in your secret:

    {
    "userName": "user name",
    "password": "password"
}

    For SharePoint Online OAuth 2.0 authentication, the following is the minimum JSON structure that must be in your secret:

    {
    "userName": "SharePoint account user name"",
    "password": "SharePoint account password",
    "clientId": "SharePoint auto-generated unique client id",
    "clientSecret": "secret string shared by Amazon Kendra and SharePoint to authorize communications"
}

    For SharePoint Server basic authentication, the following is the minimum JSON structure that must be in your secret:

    {
    "userName": "user name",
    "password": "password",
    "domain": "server domain name"
}

    For SharePoint Server LDAP authentication (if you need to convert your access control list (ACL) to email format for filtering on user context you can include the LDAP server URL and LDAP search base in your secret), the following is the minimum JSON structure that must be in your secret:

    {
    "userName": "user name",
    "password": "password",
    "domain": "server domain name"
    "ldapServerUrl": "ldap://example.com:389",
    "ldapSearchBase": "dc=example,dc=com"
}

    For SharePoint Server Manual authentication, the following is the minimum JSON structure that must be in your secret::

    {
    "userName": "user name",
    "password": "password",
    "domain": "server domain name",
    "emailDomainOverride": "example.com"
}

  • IAM role—Specify RoleArn when you call CreateDataSource to provide an IAM role with permissions to access your Secrets Manager secret and to call the required public APIs for the SharePoint connector and Amazon Kendra. For more information, see IAM roles for SharePoint data sources.

  • Amazon VPC—If you use SharePoint Server, specify VpcConfiguration as part of the data source configuration. See Configuring Amazon Kendra to use a VPC.

You can also add the following optional features:

  • Web proxy—Whether to connect to your SharePoint site URLs via a web proxy. You can use this option only for SharePoint Server.

  • Indexing lists—Whether Amazon Kendra should index the contents of attachments to SharePoint list items.

  • Change log—Whether Amazon Kendra should use the SharePoint data source change log mechanism to determine if a document must be updated in the index.

    Note

    Use the change log if you don’t want Amazon Kendra to scan all of the documents. If your change log is large, it might take Amazon Kendra less time to scan the documents in the SharePoint data source than to process the change log. If you are syncing your SharePoint data source with your index for the first time, all documents are scanned.

  • Inclusion and exclusion filters—You can specify whether to include or exclude certain content.

    Note

    Most data sources use regular expression patterns, which are inclusion or exclusion patterns referred to as filters. If you specify an inclusion filter, only content that matches the inclusion filter is indexed. Any document that doesn’t match the inclusion filter isn’t indexed. If you specify an inclusion and exclusion filter, documents that match the exclusion filter are not indexed, even if they match the inclusion filter.

  • Field mappings—Choose to map your SharePoint data source fields to your Amazon Kendra index fields. For more information, see Mapping data source fields.

    Note

    The document body field or the document body equivalent for your documents is required in order for Amazon Kendra to search your documents. You must map your document body field name in your data source to the index field name _document_body. All other fields are optional.

  • User context filtering and access control—Amazon Kendra crawls the access control list (ACL) for your documents, if you have an ACL for your documents. The ACL information is used to filter search results based on the user or their group access to documents. For more information, see User context filtering.

Learn more

To learn more about integrating Amazon Kendra with your SharePoint data source, see: