As organizations transition towards self-service experience for employees, it is difficult to scale this effort effectively due to knowledge sources and information spread across various platforms. Employees find it challenging to manually search the necessary information from multiple data sources, as this process can be highly time-consuming and inefficient.


Freshservice's integrated knowledge search through the SharePoint Search Connector (Beta) allows you to integrate the SharePoint Online (cloud version) knowledge sources enabling effective self-service at scale. It helps retrieve information from SharePoint with comprehensive and efficient Freddy AI Agent search capabilities, allowing employees to find accurate information quickly.


In order to join the Beta, reach out to support@freshworks.com.


This article contains the following topics:


Prerequisites for integration

Ensure you have the following, as part of the prerequisites for integration:

  • An active Microsoft administrator account used to access SharePoint Online.

  • An Enterprise account on Freshservice, and administrator privileges within Freshservice to initiate the integration.

  • Freddy AI Agent with the new Generative AI (Gen AI) capabilities enabled.


Integrate the SharePoint Search Connector

  1. Go to Admin > Automation & Productivity > Extensibility > Apps.



  1. Or, click the Marketplace Apps icon on the top-right corner, and select Marketplace Apps.

  2. Search and select the SharePoint Search Connector app using the Search apps option.



  1. Click Install on the installation page.



  1. Sign in using your Microsoft account credentials to complete the authentication process.

  2. Review permissions and click Accept on the Permissions requested page.



The Configuration page opens. All the sites from your SharePoint account are listed on this page.



  1. Select the SharePoint sites you want to sync. You can select up to 100 relevant SharePoint sites.

  2. Click Save and sync.


The sync status is shown on the Settings tab of the Configuration page.



Note:

  • The maximum file size that can be indexed from SharePoint is 50 MB. Files above the maximum file size cannot be synced.

  • The following data entity formats are supported for data sync:

  • Portable Document Format (PDF)

  • HyperText Markup Language (HTML)

  • Comma Separated Values (CSV)

  • Microsoft Excel (XLS and XLSX)

  • Rich Text Format (RTF)

  • Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT)

  • Microsoft Word

  • Plain text (TXT)


  1. Click the Logs tab to view logs for the artefacts synced from your SharePoint account.



Note:

  • Log details, such as sync time, sync status, number of documents or sites added/deleted/modified, and so on are updated for each data sync.

  • Each data sync can have Success or Failed status.

  • Sync failures can occur either at the overall sync level or document level.

  • If data sync is successful, the sync status is marked as Success. If the overall sync fails, the sync status is marked as Failed, which could be due to system errors.

  • Individual document errors may occur, even after a successful sync, due to unsupported file formats, large file sizes, empty documents, and so on. To obtain the reason for document-level failure, contact the support team.


  1. If you want to update the SharePoint sites for sync, use the edit option on the Settings tab of the Configuration page.



Note: It is recommended to select the sites with the most relevant and recent data.


After the sync is complete, information from the selected SharePoint sites is integrated with Freddy AI Agent’s search capabilities.


Note:

  • A one-time initial data sync is performed from the selected sites including user access permissions.

  • Currently, this feature does not support incremental sync. Therefore, any updates made to the synced SharePoint documents and user access permissions after the initial data sync will not be indexed or updated. This is also applicable if users select additional sites or remove previously selected sites.

  • Any changes made after the initial data sync will start syncing once incremental sync is released and deployed.


Features

  • The Freddy AI Agent provides relevant responses by searching the Freshservice knowledge base and SharePoint sites simultaneously.

  • The SharePoint Search Connector integration upholds user access permissions, which means that the search results provided to users are based on their access to the content on SharePoint.


Note: If a user asks a query on a Slack or Microsoft Teams channel, the SharePoint response will always be delivered to the user over a direct message (DM). This is because the Freddy AI Agent will be unable to check if everyone in the channel has access to the SharePoint content.


  • Multi-turn conversations are supported to enable extended conversations with Freddy AI Agent and provide continued assistance to answer employees’ issues.

  • Multi-lingual conversations are supported to enable employees to chat and receive assistance from Freddy AI Agent in any language of their choice.

  • Context-aware resolutions are supported with built-in domain awareness that doesn’t require training to assist in resolving IT and non-IT issues.

  • Citations and grounding are supported with reference-inclusive responses to ground resolutions on an identifiable and reliable source of truth.


Upcoming enhancements

The following enhancements related to the integrated knowledge search are planned to be included soon:

  • Incremental sync: Any updates made to the synced SharePoint documents and user access permissions after the initial sync will not be indexed and updated once every 15 minutes. This is also applicable if the user selects additional sites or removes previously synced sites.

  • Multi-tenant support: Multiple Freshservice instances can be connected with the same SharePoint instance.

  • Error handling: Users will be able to download a spreadsheet detailing the documents that failed during a sync and the associated reasons.

  • Restored documents: Currently, when a document is restored on SharePoint, it is not included in data sync. The capability to sync SharePoint’s restored documents will be introduced.


Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

  1. Which version of SharePoint is supported with this integration?

Today, the integration is only supported for SharePoint Online (cloud version). We are actively working on supporting SharePoint on-premise versions as well.


  1. Why is full control of all site collections required?

Full control of all site collections is required to fetch the SharePoint site permissions. This is a technical limitation from Microsoft which was introduced in 2024.


  1. What happens when part of my data is in SharePoint and rest in Freshservice knowledge base?
    Our Freddy-powered Freddy AI Agent has the intelligence to provide you with the most relevant response by unifying the content from various sources.


  1. How does Freddy AI Agent ensure that users only see documents they have access to?

When a user asks a query, Freddy AI Agent checks to see if the user has access to the content that’s retrieved from SharePoint to answer the query. The user’s email address is used to uphold the access privileges between SharePoint and Freshservice. Admins should ensure that the email address field is populated on SharePoint and there is parity between SharePoint and Freshservice.


  1. What to do if I face data sync issues?

If you encounter persisting data sync errors, reach out to your CSM or support@freshservice.com for further assistance.


  1. What search methods are used for retrieving results from SharePoint?

Hybrid search method, which is a combination of context-based and keyword search is used to retrieve results from SharePoint.


  1. In what scenarios will data not sync?

The data will not sync when there is an empty document, incorrect file format, or when the file size exceeds 50 MB.