Configure crawl settings for a Dropbox external content connector

Specify the user and team folders you want your Dropbox external content connector to crawl. Define inclusion or exclusion filters to dictate the types of content the crawl retrieves and feeds to AI Search for indexing.

Before you begin

A connector administrator must have already created the Dropbox external content connector that you want to configure crawl settings for. To learn about this procedure, see Create a Dropbox external content connector.

Role required: sn_ext_conn.xcc_admin

About this task

This task is optional. By default, the Dropbox external content connector crawls all user and team folders from its specified source system and sends all content and binary files with all supported file extensions to AI Search for indexing. Only perform this task if you want the connector to ignore user or team folder content, or to use any of the following non-default settings:

• Inclusion or exclusion filters for the user folders to crawl when running content crawls
• Inclusion or exclusion filters for the team folders to crawl when running content crawls
• Inclusion or exclusion filters for the binary file extensions to retrieve when running content crawls

Content is only retrieved from the source system if it passes all of your configured crawl setting filters. If any crawl setting filter excludes a content item, the external content connector doesn't retrieve it.

Important:

By default, each external content connector can index up to one million (1,000,000) content items from its source system. When a connector exceeds this limit, it continues to crawl the source system, but only sends content item deletions and updates to AI Search for indexing, ignoring new content items. The connector logs an error message for every 10,000 content items it crawls beyond the indexing limit.

When a connector's indexed content item count exceeds 800,000, a warning message appears in the connector's UI to indicate that it's approaching the indexing limit. If the connector reaches the indexing limit, an error message appears in its UI.

External content connectors that support user permissions crawls can handle permissions for up to five hundred thousand (500,000) users and their groups. If a connector retrieves users in excess of this limit, user and group permissions may not be correctly applied to the connector's retrieved content. As a result, the content may not be searchable.

If one of your connectors reaches the content indexing limit, you can update its crawl settings and file inclusion/exclusion filters to reduce the number of content items it retrieves. Alternatively, if you need a connector to index more than 1,000,000 content items, you can create a Customer Service and Support case at https://support.servicenow.com/now to request a limit increase for the connector.

Procedure

1. Navigate to All > External Content Connectors > External Content Admin Home.
2. In the Connectors list, select the record for the Dropbox external content connector whose settings you want to modify.
3. In the connector editor's Settings tab, select Crawl settings.
4. Optional: Deselect the Crawl user content option or the Crawl team content option depending on what content type you want the connecor to retrieve.
   Note:

   If you deselect both content options, the connector won't retrieve any content from your source system.
5. If you selected Crawl user content, select one of the following User content options:
   • To crawl all user folders from the source system, select Crawl all users.

   • To crawl only a specified set of user folders from the source system, select Include only these users, then use the Include only these users field and Add button to enter email addresses for users whose folders you want the connector to include when crawling.

     As an example, you might enter [e-mail] to only retrieve searchable content from this user's folder.

   • To crawl all but a specified set of user folders from the source system, select Exclude only these users, then use the Exclude only these users field and Add button to enter email addresses for users whose folders you want the connector to exclude when crawling.

     As an example, you might enter [e-mail] to exclude searchable content from this user's folder.

6. If you selected Crawl team content, select one of the following Team folder content options:
   • To crawl all team folders from the source system, select Crawl all team folders.

   • To crawl only a specified set of team folders from the source system, select Include only these team folders, then use the Include only these team folders field and Add button to enter names for team folders you want the connector to include when crawling.

     As an example, you might enter Marketing and AI Ambassadors to only retrieve searchable content from these team folders.

   • To crawl all but a specified set of team folders from the source system, select Exclude only these team folders, then use the Exclude only these team folders field and Add button to enter names for team folders you want the connector to exclude when crawling.

     As an example, you might enter Legal to exclude searchable content from this team folder.

7. Select one of the following Files options:
   • To retrieve all files with supported extensions from the source system, select Crawl all files.

   • To retrieve only attachments with specified file extensions from the source system, select Include only these file extensions, then use the File extensions to include field to enter file extensions you want the connector to include when crawling.

     As an example, you might enter .docx to retrieve only files with the Microsoft Word file format.

   • To retrieve all attachments except those with specified file extensions from the source system, select Exclude only these file extensions, then use the File extensions to exclude field to enter file extensions you want the connector to exclude when crawling.

     As an example, you might enter .csv to exclude files with the Comma-Separated Values (CSV) file format.

   For details on the supported file extensions, see Binary file extensions supported in External Content Connectors.
8. Optional: If you want AI Search to automatically generate captions for content in attachments and files retrieved by the connector, select the Multimodal captions option.
   When you select this option, the Platform Multimodal Service automatically generates descriptive captions for images, tables, charts, and other visual elements found in retrieved attachments and files. You can discover these retrieved attachments and files by searching for terms from their generated captions.

   This option is only available when the Platform Multimodal Service plugin is activated on your instance.

   • For details on activating the plugin, see Activate the Platform Multimodal Service plugin.
   • To learn how to select the VLM (visual learning model) provider and model used for the Platform Multimodal Service, see Configure multimodal captioning for AI Search.
9. Select Save and validate.

Result

The Dropbox external content connector is updated with your modified crawl settings.

What to do next

To retrieve content from your Dropbox source system using your modified crawl settings, create and run a one-time content crawl for your Dropbox external content connector. To learn about creating and running one-time content crawls, see Create a content crawl for an external content connector.