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SharePoint Search integratino with Box

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congem

Hi all,

 

We have a large scale Office 365 installation in place but we've started using Box for storing documentation for projects that need to be externally available to our partners. One of our projects has come back with a questoion of is it possible to integrate SharePoint and Box together so that one can search from sharepoint and find documentation in their Box site. 

 

I've done some investigation and I have not been able to find any of the typical integration points from the SharePoint side such as a BCD/BCS shim. I don't see anything in any of the integration stories that would indicate this is possible in any of the normal integration tools. I'm kind of looking for some direction where the best way to start this would be. Is it simply building a page leveraging the Box Search APIs?

 

Any help/direction appreciated.

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  • jcleblanc

    Hi ,

     

    Your assessment is correct, the best way to build an integration like this is through a middleware layer that leverages off of the Box search APIs. Here's a basic run through of the process:

    • From SharePoint (either using their APIs within a custom page or directly in an app) you would get the input for what to search with (keywords / etc).
    • The middleware page / app would auth to Box using one of the auth types - a few options for you:
      • JWT / OAuth 2 application: This will allow you to use Box APIs behind the scenes without the user having to log in to their Box account. The app can make API calls on behalf of the user to search for their content. One warning here - if you use this auth type your app will need to belong to the same enterprise (company) that the user(s) belong to or be collaborated in on their files / folders as an external contributor. 
      • OAuth 2 application: This one is easier to manage for you. Basically when a user wants to search for their Box content for the first time you will forward the user to Box to log in, grant the app permissions, then redirect them back to the app. If your users are all over different enterprises I would suggest this method as it maintains a 1:1 relationship between your site and the user, allowing you to search for content on their account. It's much easier to manage.
    • When the app auth is complete, simply make a call to the search endpoint for that user with any content you may need.

    Hope that helps,

    Jon

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