What Are SharePoint Reference Sets?

A reference set is a group of references (i.e. elements detailing the structure of a single SharePoint item) which describes the architecture of a SharePoint environment and, therefore, allows the Coveo Platform to index its content.

The Default reference set included with CES contains a reference for each SharePoint 2007 and 2010 built-in templates (ex: Announcements, Contacts, etc). However, new references must be added for each custom template used and, if an existing template is modified, its corresponding reference must be updated as well; otherwise, erroneous or blank results are returned by queries (ex.: the content and summary can be inverted and the author name missing). It is also possible to create different reference sets to reflect the structural specifities of each SharePoint repository.

Note: SharePoint references are used only to index structured information; unstructured information is automatically extracted using the corresponding converter or IFilter.