# Connector Framework Server

Connector Framework Server (CFS) processes the information that is retrieved by connectors, and then indexes the information into IDOL.

A single CFS can process information from any number of connectors. For example, a CFS might process files retrieved by a File System Connector, web pages retrieved by a Web Connector, and e-mail messages retrieved by an Exchange Connector.

To use the ServiceNow Connector to index documents into IDOL Server, you must have a CFS. When you install the ServiceNow Connector, you can choose to install a CFS or point the connector to an existing CFS.

For information about how to configure and use Connector Framework Server, refer to the Connector Framework Server Administration Guide.

## Filter Documents and Extract Subfiles

The documents that are sent by connectors to CFS contain only metadata extracted from the repository, such as the location of a file or record that the connector has retrieved. CFS uses KeyView to extract the file content and file specific metadata from over 1000 different file types, and adds this information to the documents. This allows IDOL to extract meaning from the information contained in the repository, without needing to process the information in its native format.

CFS also uses KeyView to extract and process sub-files. Sub-files are files that are contained within other files. For example, an e-mail message might contain attachments that you want to index, or a Microsoft Word document might contain embedded objects.

## Manipulate and Enrich Documents

CFS provides features to manipulate and enrich documents before they are indexed into IDOL. For example, you can:

- add additional fields to a document.
- divide long documents into multiple sections.
- run tasks including Eduction, Optical Character Recognition, or Face Recognition, and add the information that is obtained to the document.
- run a custom Lua script to modify a document.

## Index Documents

After CFS finishes processing documents, it automatically indexes them into one or more indexes. CFS can index documents into:

- IDOL Server (or send them to a Distributed Index Handler, so that they can be distributed across multiple IDOL servers).
- Vertica.

## Import Process

This section describes the import process for new files that are added to IDOL through CFS.

1. Connectors aggregate documents from repositories and send the files to CFS. A single CFS can process documents from multiple connectors. For example, CFS might receive HTML files from HTTP Connectors, e-mail messages from Exchange Connector, and database records from ODBC Connector.
2. CFS runs pre-import tasks. Pre-Import tasks occur before document content and file-specific metadata is extracted by KeyView.
3. KeyView filters the document content, and extracts sub-files.
4. CFS runs post-import tasks. Post-Import tasks occur after KeyView has extracted document content and file-specific metadata.
5. The data is indexed into IDOL.

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