Microsoft Search Graph Connectors: Boost Search on Your Intranet

**

your resource for the intranet

Microsoft Search Graph Connectors: Boost Search on Your Intranet

Microsoft Search never stops surprising us, and now Graph connectors are here.

• What are they?

• How do you use them?

• Why do they matter?

We’ll explain it all in this article.

What you’ll find in this article

• What Graph Connectors are

• Which license you need to use them

• What their value is

• Why they’re useful for the company intranet

Watch the full video or keep reading

Discover the Microsoft 365 connectors that take your search results across the 365 suite to a new level.

Graph connectors for Microsoft Search in General Availability | Microsoft 365 news

Discover Microsoft Graph Connectors

What Graph connectors are

Microsoft Graph connectors let you bring information from sources outside the Microsoft 365 collaboration platform into the search results people get through Outlook online, SharePoint, Teams, or other online versions of the Office 365 suite.

Among the available connectors, you’ll find both the ones Microsoft offers by default and the ones offered by third-party vendors. It’s up to you to decide which ones to use, depending on your needs.

For example, Microsoft provides a connector for accessing data stored in a company database, files on your file server, or tickets from Service Now, or sales data from Salesforce.

This means a person can run a search through your intranet or other Office apps and find business data from inside your organization’s database directly in the results.

For the end user, this creates a single place to search, with the ability to find information from both the Microsoft 365 collaboration cloud and from the business side of the company.

The enormous advantage the new Microsoft Search brings in terms of time and resources follows naturally from this.

With this feature, the platform takes on a new, even more empowering role for the user.

How Graph connectors work and which licenses you need

Before understanding how they work, it’s essential to know which licenses let you use them.

Microsoft Graph connectors can be used by users who have either a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 license, or E5, the highest tier in the Office 365 license family.

Beyond this first requirement, there’s also a limit on the number of items you can add to the index, the database where all the information that will show up in a user’s search results gets stored.

For every user with a Microsoft or Office 365 E5 license, there are 500 of these items that can potentially be added to the Microsoft Search index.

Let’s use an example to make this clearer.

If a company has 10 users with an Office 365 E5 license, it will have 5,000 possible items to place in the search index.

If your company has a database of 5,000 customer contacts, all of them can show up in searches made from Outlook, from the intranet, or from any other product in the 365 suite.

Once you go over 5,000 items, anything beyond that will no longer be indexed.

If you need more, though, you can add extra items to the index by purchasing more space, the same way you can for OneDrive and SharePoint. This increases the capacity of the Microsoft Search indexes, including the external ones brought in through connectors.

How do you add extra space? You can do it yourself through Microsoft, by asking your reseller, or by checking directly with your Microsoft contracts.

For pricing on this option, check directly in the 365 admin center, or review your contracts.

Why Graph connectors matter

It’s definitely important to know about this feature, because between the connectors Microsoft offers by default and the third-party ones, Search’s capabilities grow significantly.

You can pull in data from company databases, retrieve data from Service Now (a very well-known support and ticketing tool), from Salesforce, or access a file server through third-party connectors.

This opens up some very interesting scenarios.

For example, a company that has a file server in its own infrastructure, and for whatever reason has decided not to migrate to the cloud, can still use Graph connectors to bring that content into search results.

If you’re a developer, you should also know that you can use the APIs to build your own custom connectors, enriching the search engine across the entire Microsoft 365 suite.

The benefits for the intranet with Microsoft connectors

Graph connectors turn out to be particularly useful for the intranet.

Here’s why:

• Users run searches on the platform that return complete answers, since the data they find can also come from outside the 365 suite.

• Users can easily interact with the business side of the company as well.

• You can access data and information from company databases and file servers with a single click.

• You save time on search processes, which in turn speeds up the work of actually using the information you find.

• Company work becomes more complete, since users work with more information and content.

Idea generation: an employee engagement contest

As we’ve already said, the intranet is the right tool for encouraging new ideas inside a company.

You need to find effective ways to keep ideas flowing and boost engagement.

Also read: Employee engagement: everything you need to know in 2024

One approach we’ve used more than once on the intranets we’ve managed was running contests to generate new ideas, both to identify new services or products for the company’s business, and to improve well-being within the company.

How do these contests work?

People had to team up, which increased interaction and collaboration between colleagues, and together they thought about how to reach the goals the company had set for that kind of initiative. Goals covering both internal well-being and business outcomes.

Once ready, the ideas were published, after approval, directly on the portal, and everyone was given the chance to vote for them with “likes,” boosting overall visits and engagement on the intranet.

The greatest sense of involvement for people came from seeing their own ideas top the ranking and get put into practice by the company. Who’s better placed to suggest how to improve things than the people who work there every day?

By introducing Graph connectors, Microsoft Search improves the search experience for people at work, and that’s a huge advantage for a company.

Through digitized processes, the time it takes to find the right information drops significantly and gets replaced by time spent actually using it.

Don’t think Microsoft 365’s surprises are over, there are new features on the way that can take your experience navigating the suite’s apps to a whole new level.

Did you know we build smart intranets?

We’re a team of professionals in this field for over 15 years. Our goal is to help you build a smart intranet tailored to your company.

Discover how we do it.

Find out more