Deploy the SharePoint Server connector

The SharePoint Server connector enables Microsoft 365 Copilot to index content from your on-premises SharePoint Server farm. By using this connector, you can make documents and site pages discoverable through Copilot experiences while respecting your existing SharePoint permissions.

This article describes the steps to deploy and customize the SharePoint Server connector. For advanced SharePoint Server configuration information, see Set up the SharePoint Server service.

Prerequisites

Before you deploy the SharePoint Server connector, make sure that your organization has a configured SharePoint Server environment. The following table summarizes the steps to configure the SharePoint Server environment and deploy the connector.

Task	Role
Configure the environment	SharePoint Server admin
Set up prerequisites	SharePoint Server admin/Network admin
Deploy the connector in the Microsoft 365 admin center	Microsoft 365 admin
Customize connector settings (optional)	Microsoft 365 admin

Before you deploy the connector, make sure that you meet the following prerequisites:

• You're an AI administrator in Microsoft 365 to deploy connectors in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
• The SharePoint Server environment is configured. For details, see Set up SharePoint Server.
• The Microsoft Graph connector agent is installed and registered to your tenant.
• If you plan to use Microsoft Entra ID OpenID Connect (OIDC) authentication, OIDC and the scoped client identifier are configured. For details, see Set up Microsoft Entra ID OIDC authentication.

Deploy the connector

To add the SharePoint Server connector for your organization:

1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, in the left pane, select Copilot > Connectors.
2. Choose the Gallery tab.
3. From the list of available connectors, select SharePoint Server.

Alternatively, go directly to the connector gallery, search for SharePoint Server, and select Add.

Set display name

The display name identifies references in Copilot responses to help users recognize the associated file or item. The display name also signifies trusted content and is used as a content source filter. It also helps users select the right connector when adding knowledge sources to their agents.

You can accept the default SharePoint Server display name, or customize the value to use a display name that users in your organization recognize.

For more information about connector display names and descriptions, see Enhance Copilot discovery of connector content.

Set instance URL

Enter the URL for the SharePoint site or site collection in the format https://{domain}/sites/{site-name}. The connector uses this URL to identify the web application. After you authenticate, it lists all available site collections for you to choose from.

Select Microsoft Graph connector agent

Select from the list of available Graph Connector Agents registered to your tenant.

Note

Each SharePoint web application requires its own connection. You can select the same agent for multiple connections, but don't use more than three connections per agent to maintain optimal indexing performance. If you need to index more than three web applications, install extra agents and distribute the connections across them.

Choose authentication type

Choose the authentication type from the drop-down menu, and then enter the required credentials for your chosen method:

• Basic (deprecated) — Enter a username and password. This option is deprecated and will be removed.
• Windows (NTLM) — Enter credentials in domain\alias format and a password. Only NTLM is supported; Kerberos isn't supported. Recommended for farms that don't use Microsoft Entra ID OIDC.
• Entra ID OIDC — Enter the Client ID of the Entra ID app registration created during OIDC setup. Complete all steps in Set up the SharePoint Server service for SharePoint Server connector ingestion before selecting this option. Recommended for the most secure, token-based authentication.

Note

The account used for authentication must have at least Full Read permission at the Web Application level in SharePoint Server, regardless of the authentication type selected.

Note

Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) authentication isn't supported.

After you enter credentials, select Authorize to verify access and load the list of available site collections.

Select site collections

Select which site collections you want to index. The site collections belong to the web application within the SharePoint URL you provide. This list can be long based on the number of site collections available in the data source.

Roll out

Before you create the connection, make sure that:

• Authentication is successful — After selecting Authorize, a green check mark appears next to the button confirming your credentials are valid and the site collections are loaded.
• Notice is accepted — Read and accept the data indexing notice. The Create button remains disabled until you select this checkbox.

Choose Create to deploy the connection. The SharePoint Server Copilot connector starts indexing content right away.

The following table lists the default values that are set.

Category	Default value
Users	Only people with access to the content in the data source
Content	All selected site collections under the specified web application; no exclusion rules
Sync	Full crawl: every day; Incremental crawl: every 15 minutes

To customize these values, choose Custom setup. For more information, see Customize settings.

After you create your connection, you can review the status in the Connectors section of the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Review connection status

When you create the connection, it starts indexing (syncing) the content. At this time, admins are asked to provide a description for the connection. The description helps Copilot discover the connection content better. The better the connection description for the intended content usage, the better Copilot's responses. The description is also useful for users to select the right connection for their declarative agents.

For more information about writing effective connection descriptions, see Enhance Copilot discovery with Microsoft 365 Copilot connectors content.

Monitor and validate the connection

After you create the connection, return to Copilot > Connectors in the Microsoft 365 admin center and select the Your Connections tab to track its progress. The connection first shows a Syncing status while the initial full crawl runs.

Note

The time to reach Ready status depends on the volume of content in the selected site collections. Check back periodically - don't proceed with validation until the connection shows Ready.

If the connection shows a Failed status, select the connection name and go to the Error tab in the details panel to review the details.

When the connection shows a Ready status, select the connection name to open the details panel. The panel has the following tabs:

• Detail — Shows the number of items indexed, item errors, user and group errors, and the connection description.
• Statistics — Shows indexing activity and crawl statistics.
• Error — Lists any errors encountered during indexing.
• Index browser — Lets you verify whether a specific item was indexed by entering its SharePoint URL.

To validate that a document or site page was indexed, go to the Index browser tab and enter the URL of the SharePoint item. If the item is indexed, it shows an Indexed badge along with three sub-tabs for deeper inspection:

• Content — Shows the indexed properties and their status.
• Permissions — Shows the item's visibility (for example, "visible to all users").
• Check user access — Search by user name or email to confirm whether a specific user has access to the item.

If items are missing or permissions look incorrect, refer to Troubleshoot issues with the SharePoint Server connector.

Customize settings (optional)

You can customize the default values for the SharePoint Server connector settings. To customize settings, on the connector page in the admin center, choose Custom setup.

You can enter Custom setup in two ways:

• Create a new connection — Select Custom setup at the top right of the setup screen to get three additional tabs alongside the standard setup fields: Users, Content, and Sync.
• Edit an existing connection — The connection always opens in Custom setup. Some fields on the Setup tab can't be changed after the connection is created.

Customize user settings

Access permissions

The SharePoint Server connector supports the following user search permissions:

• Only people with access to the content in the data source (default) – Indexed data appears in the search results or in Copilot responses to users who have permission to view it in SharePoint Server.
• Everyone – The connection is open to everyone, and any user in your organization can see the content irrespective of the permissions in SharePoint Server.

For the Only people with access to the content in the data source option to work correctly, Active Directory identities must be synced with Entra ID. For details, see Sync Active Directory to Microsoft Entra ID.

Note

Microsoft 365 Copilot connectors support users, security groups, and distribution lists. However, SharePoint Server doesn't support distribution lists as access control lists (ACLs). If distribution lists are nested, members of those distribution lists might also get access to content through Copilot connectors.

Map identities

Active Directory synchronization with Entra ID handles identity mapping for the SharePoint Server connector. The connector uses the synced identities to evaluate Only people with access permissions against Microsoft 365 user accounts.

If you have non-standard identity mappings (for example, different UPN suffixes between Active Directory and Entra ID), confirm that Microsoft Entra Connect Sync is configured correctly. For more information, see Sync Active Directory to Microsoft Entra ID.

Customize content settings

Query string

The SharePoint Server connector doesn't use a query string filter. Instead, you control which content is indexed by choosing site collections during setup and by adding exclusion rules, as described in the following section.

Exclude sites from indexing

Add the URLs of the sites you want to exclude from indexing. Exclusion rules work at the site or subsite level only. Don't add URLs to site contents like libraries or documents, as those exclusions aren't honored. You can use the wildcard * at the end of a URL to exclude all contents of sites and subsites that begin with that URL.

If the URL ends with /*, all URLs prefixed with the entered URL are excluded from indexing. For example, abc.com/private/* excludes abc.com/private/terms.html and all content inside /private. However, if you provide abc.com/private/terms.html as the URL to exclude, it's not honored because exclusion rules work only at the site or subsite level.

Manage properties

Properties define what data is available to search, query, retrieve, and refine. From this setting, you can add or remove data source properties, assign a schema annotation to a property (searchable, queryable, retrievable, or refinable), change the semantic label, and add an alias. The following properties are indexed by default.

Tip

For most deployments, the default properties are sufficient. Add custom properties only if your organization needs to search or filter on specific SharePoint columns.

Property	Semantic Label	Description	Schema Attributes
Content		Content of the item	Search
CreatedBy	Created by	The owner who created the item	Query, Retrieve, Search
CreatedByUpn		The User Principal Name (UPN) of the owner who created the item	Query, Retrieve, Search
CreatedTime	Created date time	Date and time that the item was created in the data source	Query, Retrieve
DocumentType		The type of document	Retrieve
IcnUrl	IconUrl	Icon URL for the item type	Retrieve
LastAccessed		Date and time that the item was last accessed	Query, Retrieve
LastModified	Last modified date time	Date and time that the item was last modified	Query, Retrieve
LastModifiedBy	Last modified by	The user who modified the item	Query, Retrieve
LastModifiedByUpn		The User Principal Name (UPN) of the user who modified the item	Retrieve, Search
Name	Title	The title of the item that you want to show in Copilot and other search experiences	Query, Retrieve, Search
ObjectType		The type of object as returned from the data source	Query, Retrieve, Search
Url		Item URL	Retrieve

You can add custom properties defined in your sites to better manage the search or Copilot outcomes for your users. To add a custom property, select Add property and specify the exact string from the data source. Define a property name and data type (String, StringCollection, DateTime, Boolean, Int64, or Double). Custom properties match the custom columns in SharePoint.

Important

Property names must match the column names in SharePoint exactly. The connector silently ignores any property name that doesn't match an existing column during crawling. Double-check spelling before you save.

Note

A total of 128 properties are supported. If you're selecting multiple site collections in a single connection, only default properties are supported. If you want to support custom properties defined in a site, create a different connection and add custom properties for that site.

Customize sync intervals

The Sync tab controls how often your content is refreshed between SharePoint Server and the connector index. You can also set the Time zone used to schedule crawls.

Copilot connectors use two types of refresh intervals:

• Full crawl — Runs on a recurrence you set (default is every day). You can optionally specify a start time.
• Incremental crawl — Runs on a recurrence and frequency you set (default is every 15 minutes). You can toggle this option on or off independent of the full crawl.

For more information, see Guidelines for sync settings.

Set up Microsoft Search result page

After you create the connection, customize the search results page with verticals and result types to surface SharePoint Server content in Microsoft Search. For more information, see manage verticals and result types.

Related content

• SharePoint Server connector overview
• Troubleshoot issues with the SharePoint Server connector
• Set up Copilot connectors in the Microsoft 365 admin center