Customize the User Documents Connector

A User Documents connector enables users to upload and ingest their own documents through the Zeta Alpha UI. This guide shows you how to create and configure a User Documents connector for your data ingestion workflows.

Info: This guide presents an example configuration for a User Documents connector. For a complete set of configuration options, see the User Documents Connector Configuration Reference.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have:

1. Access to the Zeta Alpha Platform UI
2. A tenant created
3. An index created

Step 1: Create the User Documents Basic Configuration

To create a User Documents connector, define a configuration file with the following basic fields:

• is_document_owner: (boolean) Indicates whether this connector "owns" the crawled documents. When set to true, other connectors cannot crawl the same documents.
• content_source_name: (string, optional) Custom name for the content source.
• logo_url: (string, optional) The URL of a logo to display on document cards

Example Configuration

{
    "name": "User Uploaded Documents",
    "description": "Documents uploaded by users through the UI",
    "is_indexable": true,
    "connector": "user_documents",
    "connector_configuration": {
        "is_document_owner": true,
        "content_source_name": "My Documents",
        "logo_url": "https://example.com/logo.png"
    }
}

Step 2: Add Field Mapping Configuration

When users upload documents, they can provide metadata through the UI. You can map these fields to your index fields using the field_mappings configuration.

Example Field Mappings

The following example shows field mappings for the default index fields:

{
    ...
    "connector_configuration": {
        ...
        "field_mappings": [
            {
                "content_source_field_name": "title",
                "index_field_name": "DCMI.title"
            },
            {
                "content_source_field_name": "description",
                "index_field_name": "DCMI.abstract"
            },
            {
                "content_source_field_name": "authors",
                "index_field_name": "DCMI.creator"
            },
            {
                "content_source_field_name": "year",
                "index_field_name": "DCMI.created"
            },
            {
                "content_source_field_name": "date",
                "index_field_name": "DCMI.date"
            },
            {
                "content_source_field_name": "source",
                "index_field_name": "DCMI.source"
            },
            {
                "content_source_field_name": "uri",
                "index_field_name": "uri"
            },
            {
                "content_source_field_name": "document_content_type",
                "index_field_name": "document_content_type"
            },
            {
                "content_source_field_name": "base64_content",
                "index_field_name": "document_content_path.base64_content"
            }
        ],
        ...
    }
}

Step 3: Create the User Documents Content Source

To create your User Documents connector in the Zeta Alpha Platform UI:

1. Navigate to your tenant and click View next to your target index
2. Click View under Content Sources for the index
3. Click Create Content Source
4. Paste your JSON configuration
5. Click Submit

How Users Upload Documents

Once the User Documents connector is configured, users can upload documents through the Zeta Alpha UI:

1. Users navigate to the document upload interface
2. They select a file to upload
3. They optionally provide metadata (title, description, authors, etc.). If no metadata is provided, values are extracted from the document.
4. The document is uploaded and ingested into the platform

Document Access Control

User-uploaded documents are automatically assigned access rights based on the user who uploaded them. Users can also choose to share the document with:

• Individual teammates
• Entire teams they belong to

When shared with a team, all team members gain access to the document. New team members added later will also gain access to previously shared documents.

Document Lifecycle

User-uploaded documents follow the same lifecycle as documents from other connectors:

1. Document upload
2. Ingestion into the pipeline
3. Content extraction and processing
4. Indexing for search
5. Available for retrieval with appropriate access rights

Documents can be updated or deleted through the UI by users with appropriate permissions.