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Use an External Provider Data Source for Federated Search
Let users search in your Salesforce org and access data from an external search provider. Salesforce supports external search providers that support the OpenSearch standard.
Required Editions
| User Permissions Needed | |
|---|---|
| To create and edit an external data source: | Customize Application |
Salesforce has partnered with Docurated and Swiftype to make it easy to connect external search providers to Salesforce. Using these partner’s services, you can search through the external repositories they serve—for example, Dropbox, Confluence, and SharePoint. If you use external data sources managed by Docurated, Swiftype, or Squirro, work with them to set up their service as an external search provider.
- From Setup, in the Quick Find Box, enter External Data Sources, and then select External Data Sources.
- Select New External Data Source and set the following options.
Field Description External Data Source A user-friendly name for the data source that’s displayed in the Salesforce user interface. Name A unique identifier used to refer to the external data source definition through the API. This field auto-populates with the same name as External Data Source when you click in the field. Type Select Federated Search: OpenSearch. OpenSearchDescription URL URL to point to the OpenSearchDescription of the external data source provider. The OpenSearch description is located in the OpenSearch section of the search engine documentation. Include the entire URL, including https://. 
Tip If this option isn’t available, contact Salesforce.Connection Timeout Number of seconds to wait for a response from the external system before timing out, up to 120 seconds. The default is 20 seconds. Use this field to limit the wait time for external data to load into your org. Depending on the connection to the external system and its availability, retrieving data can take a long time. Search results visible to all profiles Makes external search results visible to all profiles during the initial setup. If you clear this option or it appears disabled, you can manually set which profiles get search results. Certificate Associate the authentication certificate to the external data source. Identity Type The identity type used to authenticate to the external data source. - If you don’t need authentication, select Anonymous.
- If you need authentication, select Named Principal.
Authentication Protocol The protocol required to access the external data source. - If you selected Anonymous for Identity Type, select No Authentication.
- If you selected Named Principal for Identity Type, select OAuth 2.0 and complete the additional fields.
Authentication Provider Look up the name of the OpenID Connect Authentication Provider that you added. Scope Autofills to Search. Start Authentication Flow Select to start the authentication process. - Save your work.
- To ensure that the external data source connects correctly, click Validate and Sync.
- To create the Salesforce external object and a custom field for each table column that’s compatible with a Salesforce metadata field type, select the tables and click Sync. You can’t create an external object manually.
Next, customize external objects and fields. Configure the external object label, search result layout, page layout, and field-level security to ensure visibility to individual fields. However, don’t change the name of the external object. A custom tab isn’t required for the external object to appear in search results. If you created a custom tab, the source could show up both under External Results and in the list of objects.
