IDOL Essentials Self-Study

Target group

This course is intended for: IDOL Administrators, System Engineers, Developers, and Project
Managers

Course structure

Module 1: Technology / Overview

• Covers Training agenda and objective.
• Understand the complexities of this powerful infrastructure software, by examining the technology from a high-level perspective

Module 2: Installing MicroFocus IDOL

• Understand how to install and configure MicroFocus IDOL.
• Learn the role of key component.
• Be able to check if MicroFocus IDOL is running.

Module 3: IDOL Admin Tool

• To demonstrate and understand the functionality of the MicroFocus IDOL Admin tool.
• View logs and observe erroneous entries
• Understand optimizations of MicroFocus IDOL and use MicroFocus IDOL Admin to monitor performance.

Module 4: Basis IDOL Configuration
Learn how to prepare your IDOL prior to indexing data or sending queries to the engine. You will learn how to organize your indexes through the creation of tailored indexes.

• Creating MicroFocus IDOL Databases
• Optimizing MicroFocus IDOL using IDOL Server Fields

Module 5: Indexing with File System Connector and CFS
Learn how to index data using the File System Connector. In particular you will become familiar with using the Connector Framework Server to ingest content, and use Lua scripts to fine-tune the aggregation process.

• Indexing & Configuring with File System Connector
• Setting up polling methods
• Setting up indexing logs
• Running the File System Connector
• Viewing the File System Connector Process
• Indexing content into the Food Database
• Checking MicroFocus IDOL Content
• Using the IndexerGetStatus action

Module 6: Manual Indexing

Examine IDOL’s index structure. Learn the ability to index IDX structured content. Understand the communication between the Connector and IDOL.
Learn how to index content both automatically and manually into IDOL using best practice methods.
• Examining an IDX file
• Familiarizing yourself with the IDX layout
• Applying a DREREFERENCE to a document
• Document sectioning
• Perform a manual Index using DREADD
• Index more content into Science Database

Module 7: Indexing XML

Learn how to manually index native XML into IDOL using a practical example to understand the indexing process in detail.

• Index well-formed XML into IDOL.
Having indexed a variety of content into IDOL, you will learn a variety of
methods to query the engine.

Module 8: Retrieval

Business Intelligence for Human Interface (BIFHI). Initial topics such as Conceptual Search, Automatic Query Guidance, Suggest More, Federated Search, Automatic Hyperlinking, Keyword, Boolean and Proximity search are presented. Then, learn how to execute the same queries using HTTP Action commands
Understand the different types of search:
• Keyword search
• Boolean and Proximity search
• Conceptual search
• Automatic Query Guidance
• Suggest More search

Module 9: MicroFocus IDOL
Action Commands
Learn how to communicate directly with IDOL using HTTP action commands. Key areas including understanding the HTTP Action syntax, examining a wide variety of Action Commands and associated mandatory action parameters, in addition to a whole host of optional parameters.
Recognize how to perform the following:
• Use the Action command syntax
• Display the MicroFocus IDOL online help
• Use the GetRequestLog/ GRL action
• Use the Query action
• Use the Suggest action
• Use the GetContent action
• Use the GetStatus action

Module 10: Setting Result
Field Display

• Configure MicroFocus IDOL to automatically display additional fields
• Display additional fields for individual queries
• MicroFocus IDOL displays by default the following fields:
– Reference
– ID
– Section
– Weight
– Links
– Database
– Title

Module 11: Backing Up
MicroFocus IDOL

Learn how to set up IDOL back-up processes, immediately and on a scheduled basis.Learn about scheduled automatic backup at regular intervals
• Perform an immediate backup

Module 12: Exporting Data from MicroFocus IDOL

Learn about IDOL maintenance procedures to promote best practice methods.
You will learn how to take an existing IDOL index and export the content before re-importing the data again.
• Export documents to an IDX file
• Export documents to an XML file
• Initialize MicroFocus IDOL in preparation to set up Parametric Refinement

Module 13: Parametric Refinement

Learn to configure and index data for parametric refinement using both Find/BIFHI parametric search functionality and direct action commands to demonstrate the full capability of guided navigation.
• Indexing parametric data into MicroFocus IDOL
• More about indexing

Module 14: Advanced Querying
In order to implement advanced query features both administrators and developers need to examine further pre-indexing considerations. Learn how to utilize the most effective retrieval methods that IDOL has to offer that solve business critical requirements.
• Understand specific search features require specific MicroFocus IDOL
configuration settings:
• Numbers/Alpha-Numeric
• Proper Names
• Stop Word
• Exact Word Matches
• Wildcarded Words
• Wildcarded Numbers or alphanumerics
• Phonetic Spelling
• Uncertain Spellings
• Spelling Checking with DREFUZZY and SpellCheck actions

Module 15: Categorization

Organizing your information is a key method of allowing your users to navigate through vast quantities of unstructured data. Learn how to automatically categorize content at the point of index, thereby providing a meta rich index to search navigate or search from.
• Recognize Categorization components within IDOL
• Recognize how Categorization operations work within IDOL
• Define the Taxonomy Structure
• Use Category Action Commands

Module 16: Languages

Understand how to accurately process documents in different encodings.
Then, incorporate the Automatic Language Detection feature within IDOL.
• Configuring MicroFocus IDOL to determine documents’ language types at index time
• Automatic Language Detection
• Indexing
• Querying

Module 17: Monitoring and Reporting

Understand the role of IDOL’s License Server. Learn about the license process and how to “revoke” a license when required. Plus, information about Service action commands is covered.
Learn how the License Server can be controlled to provide the following functionality:
• License
• Logging

Module 18: Distributed
Handlers

For multi-instance IDOL architectures, learn how to enable the Distributed Index Handler (DIH) to distribute content in a mirrored or non-mirrored architecture to support fail-over and load balanced environments. Also, you will learn how to enable the Distributed Action Handler (DAH) to distribute action commands in a mirrored or non- mirrored architecture to support fail-over and load-balanced environments.
• Recognize the Server install architecture
• Define the Distributed Handlers

Module 19: Performance and Best Practice

• Explain how to recognize Indexing Optimizations
• Discuss how to optimize Query Operations
• Explain how to optimize Distributed Architectures
• Explore useful IDOL Diagnostics
• Recognize Indexing Optimizations
• Optimizing Query Operations
• Optimizing Distributed Architectures
• Useful MicroFocus IDOL Diagnostics