Add or edit a Gmail for Work source

This is for:

Developer System Administrator
Important

The Gmail for Work source will soon be deprecated. Starting September 2024, it won’t be available anymore.

If you have any questions, contact your Coveo representative.

With a Google account with administrator credentials, members who have the required privileges can add the Gmail mailboxes content (emails and attachments) of Google Apps domain users to a Coveo organization.

As a member of one of these groups, when you create the source, you authorize the Coveo organization to read your Google account using OAuth 2.0, a protocol that authorizes access without giving your password.

Tip
Leading practice

The number of items that a source processes per hour (crawling speed) depends on various factors, such as network bandwidth and source configuration. See About crawling speed for information on what can impact crawling speed, as well as possible solutions.

Source key characteristics

Features Supported Additional information

Gmail for Work version

Latest version

Indexable content

Emails and attachments

Content update operations

refresh

check

Takes place every three hours by default.

A rescan or rebuild is required to capture domain, primary email, and email aliases changes.

rescan

check

rebuild

check

Content security options

Same users and groups as in your content system

check

The Gmail delegation feature isn’t yet supported, meaning a user can only search the content of their mailbox even if they have access to other users' mailboxes in Gmail for Work.

Specific users and groups

x

Everyone

check

Prerequisites

Before you create a Gmail for Work source, you must:

  1. Create a Google API console project.

  2. Modify security parameters in your Google Apps account.

Add or edit a Gmail for Work source

Once you’ve authorized your Coveo organization to access your users' Gmail mailboxes, follow the instructions below to add or edit your Gmail for Work source.

Tip
Leading practice

It’s best to create or edit your source in your sandbox organization first. Once you’ve confirmed that it indexes the desired content, you can copy your source configuration to your production organization, either with a snapshot or manually.

See About non-production organizations for more information and best practices regarding sandbox organizations.

"Configuration" tab

In the Add/Edit a Gmail for Work Source panel, the Configuration tab is selected by default. It contains your source’s general and authentication information, as well as other parameters.

General information

Source name

Enter a name for your source.

Tip
Leading practice

A source name can’t be modified once it’s saved, therefore be sure to use a short and descriptive name, using letters, numbers, hyphens (-), and underscores (_). Avoid spaces and other special characters.
Google Apps domain

Enter the Google Drive domain that you want to index.

Google Apps administrator account email

Enter the email of a Google Apps administrator account in the user@company.com format.

Google service account email

Enter the Google service account email address that you obtained when you authorized your Coveo organization to access your users' Gmail mailboxes.

Private key file

Click Choose File, and then select the private key file that you created when you authorized your Coveo organization to access your users' Gmail mailboxes.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

If you want Coveo to extract text from image files or PDF files containing images, enable the appropriate option.

The extracted text is processed as item data, meaning that it’s fully searchable and will appear in the item Quick view. See Enable optical character recognition for details on this feature.

"Mailboxes to include" section

By default, all user mailboxes in your domain are indexed. As an alternative, you can select Specific to enter the addresses of the specific mailboxes that you want to index.

"Additional content to include" section

Check the Trashed and spam items box to index the items in the Trash and Spam folders of the indexed mailboxes.

"Content security" tab

Select who will be able to access the source items through a Coveo-powered search interface. For details on this parameter, see Content security.

Note

The Gmail delegation feature, which allows a user to access another user’s mailbox, isn’t supported. Therefore, if you choose the Same users and groups as in your content system option, there may be some discrepancies in content access capabilities.

"Access" tab

In the Access tab, set whether each group (and API key, if applicable) in your Coveo organization can view or edit the current source.

For example, when creating a new source, you could decide that members of Group A can edit its configuration while Group B can only view it.

See Custom access level for more information.

Completion

  1. Finish adding or editing your source:

    • When you want to save your source configuration changes without starting a build/rebuild, such as when you know you want to do other changes soon, click Add source/Save.

    • When you’re done editing the source and want to make changes effective, click Add and build source/Save and rebuild source.

      Note

      On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, you must click Launch build or Start required rebuild in the source Status column to add the source content or to make your changes effective, respectively.

      Back on the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, you can follow the progress of your source addition or modification.

      Once the source is built or rebuilt, you can review its content in the Content Browser.

  2. Once your source is done building or rebuilding, review the metadata Coveo is retrieving from your content.

    1. On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click your source, and then click More > View metadata in the Action bar.

    2. If you want to use a currently not indexed metadata in a facet or result template, map it to a field.

      1. Click the metadata and then, at the top right, click Add to Index.

      2. In the Apply a mapping on all item types of a source panel, select the field you want to map the metadata to, or add a new field if none of the existing fields are appropriate.

        Notes

        • For details on configuring a new field, see Add or edit a field.

        • For advanced mapping configurations, like applying a mapping to a specific item type, see Manage mappings.

      3. Click Apply mapping.

    3. Depending on the source type you use, you may be able to extract additional metadata from your content. You can then map that metadata to a field, just like you did for the default metadata.

      More on custom metadata extraction and indexing

      Some source types let you define rules to extract metadata beyond the default metadata Coveo discovers during the initial source build.

      For example:

      Source type Custom metadata extraction methods

      Push API

      Define metadata key-value pairs in the addOrUpdate section of the PUT request payload used to upload push operations to an Amazon S3 file container.

      REST API
      and
      GraphQL API

      In the JSON configuration (REST API | GraphQL API) of the source, define metadata names (REST API | GraphQL API) and specify where to locate the metadata values in the JSON API response Coveo receives.

      Database

      Add <CustomField> elements in the XML configuration. Each element defines a metadata name and the database field to use to populate the metadata with.

      Web

      Sitemap

      Some source types automatically map metadata to default or user created fields, making the mapping process unnecessary. Some source types automatically create mappings and fields for you when you configure metadata extraction.

      See your source type documentation for more details.

    4. When you’re done reviewing and mapping metadata, return to the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page.

    5. To reindex your source with your new mappings, click Launch rebuild in the source Status column.

    6. Once the source is rebuilt, you can review its content in the Content Browser.

Required privileges

You can assign privileges to allow access to specific tools in the Coveo Administration Console. The following table indicates the privileges required to view or edit elements of the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page and associated panels. See Manage privileges and Privilege reference for more information.

Note

The Edit all privilege isn’t required to create sources. When granting privileges for the Sources domain, you can grant a group or API key the View all or Custom access level, instead of Edit all, and then select the Can Create checkbox to allow users to create sources. See Can Create ability dependence for more information.
Actions Service Domain Required access level

View sources, view source update schedules, and subscribe to source notifications

Content

Fields

View

Sources

Organization

Organization

Edit sources, edit source update schedules, and view the View Metadata subpage

Content

Fields

Edit

Sources

Content

Source metadata

View

Organization

Organization

What’s next?