# Ingest Data into IDOL

IDOL is a platform that helps you get the most benefit from large quantities of information. Before you can start using IDOL, you need to index your data. Your organization is likely to have data in many different formats, distributed across many different kinds of repository. The process of extracting information from repositories and preparing it for indexing into the IDOL index is called ingestion.

IDOL Connectors connect to repositories and retrieve content. There are IDOL connectors for over 150 types of repository, including:

- Local and network file systems.
- Web sites and social media feeds.
- Document and content management systems such as Microsoft SharePoint.
- E-mail servers such as Microsoft Exchange.
- Database servers such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL.
- Cloud services such as OneDrive and Google Drive.

After connectors have retrieved information from a repository, they send it to an ingestion server so that it can be processed and indexed into the IDOL index. Usually, the ingestion server is an IDOL Connector Framework Server (CFS).

Typically, files that contain text are filtered by IDOL KeyView, which extracts the text so that IDOL does not need to process information in its native format. Media files, such as images or audio recordings can be sent to an IDOL Media Server which can perform media analysis such as optical character recognition or speech-to-text. The information can be standardized, so that information that originated in different repositories is stored in the same document fields and can be used more effectively. You can discard irrelevant content so that it does not pollute the IDOL index, and you can enrich the remaining documents.

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