Testing Your Connector Configuration

After you complete your BA Insight Connector set up (connection and content source are both specified) within Connectivity Hub, you can simulate crawling and indexing by using the Content TestBench.

• The Content TestBench lets you see the output of any content source that you set up and modify.
• You can also modify this output by specifying options such as enumeration and excluding text files.
• After you run the TestBench, you can see the properties that are associated with each document.

Run the TestBench to:

• Ensure your BA Insight connector works as expected
• Determine whether the content returned meets your expectations
• Test your security, metadata, and file data stage changes by enabling/disabling your scripted pipeline stages

How to Run the TestBench

1. Navigate to Content Sources > <your content source type> and click the icon.
   
2. Click Test to see the Content TestBench page.
   
3. Leave the default setting, or make any changes you require
   • Content Source
     • Use the drop-down list box to select the content for your Connector.
   • Maximum Displayed Results
     • Use the drop-down list box to select a predefined value.
     • Default setting: 10.
       
4. By default, no selections are made for the following options.
   Make any changes that you require:
   • Crawl Options
     • Leave temp files
       • Click for testing purposes.
       • Typically, you can find these files in the folder C:\Program Files\BA Insight\Connectivity Hub\Admin Site\Temp
       • These files are generated by the Connectivity Hub and represent clones of the document content such as text from a Word document.
       • Use these files to check what is sent to the target index as document content.
       • If you do not click Leave Temp Files, the test files are automatically removed so that you do not consume system resources.
     • Only Enumeration
       • See only the enumerated results for an incremental/full crawl.
       • Item metadata, security, and content are not retrieved.

     Caution! The TestBench does not store any information for previous crawls or previous tests.
     If you choose to perform an incremental testing operation, you cannot choose to use the Item URL functionality.

   • Stage Options: 
     • You can manipulate the crawled document before the item leaves the web service (before indexing) using the Advanced Scripting item definition feature.
     • By implementing custom stages, you can alter the item content, security, or metadata.
     • Test your results by disabling/enabling any/all of the following stages to test your scripts.
       • Skip Security Stages
       • Skip Metadata Stages
       • Skip FileData Stages
       These setting are handled by the connector. As a result, depending on your specific connector, they may not be supported and will not produce expected results.
   • Item URL: 
     • Enter the URL of the item in order to search for a specific document.
     • The URL text box supports crawl URLs:
       • Crawl URLs:
         • These are the internal URLs that are used during indexing.
         • These URLs have the prefix spworks:// and can be found in the crawl logs or TestBench.
         • For more information, see Configure Log Files.

     The following URLs are not supported:

     • start.spw
     • paging.spw
   • Validate User Access: 
     • Enter a user name
       • Use the format domain\user.
         • (If you try to specify user instead of domain\user, an error is thrown.)
           
       • See the following example of the results of this operation: 
         
       • In this example:
         • The item is accessible for the Visitors and Members groups.
         • The user account baitest\testuser1 is a member of groups Visitors and Members.
         • ...because of this, testuser1 is granted access to the item.

   Note: If the TestBench detects that multi-level security is returned, the TestBench does not evaluate the specified user's security.

   • The following error message is returned: "Security validation for items with multi-level security is not supported."
     The GRANT and DENY ACLs are displayed. The TestBench also confirms that security is correctly applied for the specified document.

   • The user sees items that are both granted and denied for each specific user (User is denied access to the item: Item does not contain security information for the specified user or User is granted access to the item: Grant Effective Membership: User specific access granted).

   • Suggestive messages appear for users that do not exist or are not mapped to the AD.

   • In TestBench, the escbase_itemaclhr property, which displays the permissions of a particular item, will only show level 0 permissions.

5. Click Run.

6. After running TestBench, the results of your test are displayed in the results box. As of Connectivity Hub 4.2, the results are displayed in collapsible lists and sections, allowing you to efficiently navigate through the results.
   1. Expand the Folders section to view the enumeration results of the folders and sub folders of your connection.
   2. Expand the Items section to view detailed information on the enumerated items from your connector, including the metadata properties, permissions related properties, the extracted contents of the item, the trace log, performance information, and any unused extracted properties.
   3. Click Expand All to expand all sections and lists, excluding the Trace log. This can be useful when you are searching for a specific property, without knowing which particular section it is contained in. Alternatively, you can click Collapse All to collapse all sections and lists.
   If the connector is not folder based, all items found during enumeration will be displayed in the root folder.

How to Retrieve a Specific File

Use the TestBench to return a specific file by entering the URL for this file. Choose to retrieve a suspicious or failing item in order to get more information about what is being returned from the content source. 

You can also find this information:

• Security: See results that are missing when these security results are expected to be present.
• Metadata: Identify missing metadata for specific results.
• Missing documents: These documents are queried using keywords, managed properties, filters, or refiners are not returned in the search results.

Use this operation to locate security for a specific item or to locate suspicious behavior or security concerns for a single item. This operation is both faster and easier to see. When you choose to retrieve a specific file, you use the URL that is found in the crawl log and paste this URL into the TestBench.

1. Navigate to your search index and retrieve the escbase_crawlurl metadata for the record you want to inspect.
   

2. Copy the metadata value.
   

3. Go to Content sources > > Test, add this metadata value in the Item URL text box, and run the TestBench.
   
4. View the results.

How to Validate the Security of a Specific User

This operation works for both AD and native security.

1. Navigate to Content Sources.
   
2. Click <your content source type> > > Test to see the Content TestBench page.
   
3. Validate User Access: Enter the name of your user.
   
4. Run: Click to see if the user account is found in the Active Directory.

This operation works for both AD and native security. For more information, go to Security Model.