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# Introduction

Connectors provide the connection between IDOL and the repositories that your organization uses for storing and organizing information.

You can use connectors to keep your IDOL index up-to-date with the information in a repository (using the `synchronize` fetch action) and to retrieve files, or lists of files on demand (the `collect`, `view`, and `identifiers` fetch actions). Connectors can also allow you to insert, update or delete information in the repository itself (the `insert`, `update`, and `delete` fetch actions), and apply legal holds (the `hold` and `releasehold` fetch actions). A connector can provide all of this functionality, or just some of it.

This document is for software developers who are familiar with C# and want to write new connectors using the ConnectorLib .NET SDK.

- ConnectorLib .NET SDK
- The IDOL Platform

## ConnectorLib .NET SDK

ConnectorLib .NET is a framework for writing new connectors. It provides much of the functionality required by all connectors, so that you can focus on your specific requirements.

The framework provides features that allow a connector to:

- Communicate with CFS
- Communicate with OmniGroupServer
- Handle incoming ACI requests
- Read its configuration file
- Write to log files
- Run tasks according to a schedule
- Store persistent state information (the Datastore)
- Manipulate documents (files and metadata)

Using ConnectorLib .NET to develop your connector helps ensure that it looks and behaves like a standard connector. Other IDOL components can communicate with the connector as they would with any other connector, and your connector can communicate with Micro Focus products such as CFS and OmniGroupServer.

You can choose any .NET language for writing your connector, but all of the examples in this document use C#.

## The IDOL Platform

IDOL gathers and processes unstructured, semi-structured, and structured information in any format from multiple repositories using IDOL connectors and a global relational index. It can automatically form a contextual understanding of the information in real time, linking disparate data sources together based on the concepts contained within them. For example, IDOL can automatically link concepts contained in an e-mail message to a recorded phone conversation, that can be associated with a stock trade. This information is then imported into a format that is easily searchable, adding advanced retrieval, collaboration, and personalization to an application that integrates the technology.

For more information on IDOL, refer to the IDOL Getting Started Guide.

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