Search brings your connected sources into one place. An organization admin allows integrations and configures their sources. Teammates then connect their accounts when required. Each person searches with their own access.
Add your first source
Allow an integration
As an organization admin, open Settings → Sources and turn on the integration under Allowed in Sim Search. It stays in the list; no setup page opens automatically.
The switch permits the integration in your organization. It does not connect an account, grant document access, or start indexing. Teammates connect from Integrations in the main sidebar; only admins manage these switches.
Configure it once
Select Set up beside the integration, or Manage if it already has sources. On its page, select Add source. For Slack, complete Set up Slack app first. Follow its Setup guide to connect the indexing account or choose the folders, repositories, calendars, spaces, or channels to include. More options contains secondary filters and Metadata tags.
Select Connect & Sync for an administrator connection, or Add source for member accounts. Creating a source does not invite people or authorize their accounts.
Connect and search
Open Integrations in the main sidebar and select Connect account if prompted—even if you created the source. Complete authorization in the new tab. Open Search to find documents, or Home to ask the assistant about them. Documents become available as background indexing progresses.
Source availability depends on the deployment and organization policy. An unavailable source needs operator configuration before setup can continue.
Choose the right connection method
Most sources use member accounts. Google Drive and Confluence also support a central administrator connection; GitLab requires an administrator token for a self-managed instance.
| Method | What the admin does | What teammates do |
|---|---|---|
| Member accounts | Sets the source's filters once. | Connect their own accounts. Sim lists documents using each member's access. |
| Service account (Drive) / Admin or service account (Confluence) | Connects an account that can read the content and the source's permissions or directory. | Join the organization with a matching verified identity. Confluence also requires each person to connect their account. |
| Administrator token (GitLab) | Connects a self-managed instance administrator token and selects projects to index. | Join the organization with a verified Sim email matching GitLab. No personal connection is needed. |
Adding a Google Drive or Confluence source from the admin page starts central setup. For personal connections, use Integrations → Connect account in the main sidebar. An approved provider can create its first member source there; required repository, site, or project fields are collected before authorization. Admins can edit that source's filters afterward in its Settings tab.
Some member sources offer More options → Sync documents with. Connected members uses members' accounts for both content and access checks. Selecting a dedicated account uses it to fetch content; members still connect to establish which documents they may search. Account for browsing only helps an admin pick source options—it does not enroll that account for Search.
An administrator connection does not grant everyone access to everything. Search applies the source's supported permission rules. It also does not automatically discover every employee's data: the indexing account must be able to read the configured content.
Connector guides
| Source | Content | Connection in Search |
|---|---|---|
| Confluence | Pages and blog posts | Admin/service account or member accounts; each teammate connects |
| GitHub | Repository text files | GitHub App installation plus each member's authorization |
| GitLab | Repository files, wikis, issues, merge requests | Self-managed instance administrator token; no member connection |
| Gmail | Email thread text | Each member's Gmail account |
| Google Calendar | Calendar events | Each member's Google Calendar account |
| Google Drive | Supported Drive files | Delegated service account or member accounts |
| Jira | Issues | Each member's Jira account |
| Slack | Channel messages and threads | Slack app installation plus each member's authorization |
Bring your team
Invite people through the organization's Settings → Members, or use your organization's SSO provisioning. Share the organization's Home or Integrations URL. People need their own Sim account and organization membership; they do not need access to a workspace. Connecting an external account alone does not grant organization membership.
To request a particular account connection, open Settings → Sources, select Manage beside the integration (or Set up if no sources exist), then Accounts → Request connections. This tab is available for providers that support personal connections. If setup is missing, complete the source or Slack app setup shown there first. The list shows organization account contributors and their connection status for that provider.
These requests are separate from organization invitations. They let recipients contribute an external account; they do not grant Sim organization membership or Search access. People on the Sources settings page shows account contributors across providers. See Connect your account for the teammate walkthrough.
Revoke all account access withdraws every account that person contributed to the organization, including other providers. It does not remove their organization membership.
Manage sources and documents
Open Settings → Sources, select Manage beside the integration, then select a source. Providers with personal connections have Sources and Accounts tabs; providers such as GitLab open directly to the source list. Multiple sources can have different folder, repository, space, or project scopes.
| Source tab | What you can do |
|---|---|
| Documents | Find indexed documents, inspect processing status, retry failed indexing, or exclude and restore documents. |
| Settings | Edit the source's scope, filters, and supported connection settings. Save your changes before leaving. |
| Sync history | Review recent sync runs and errors. |
Use the source header to sync, pause, resume, or remove that source. The back link returns to its integration. To disable an entire integration, turn off its Allowed in Sim Search switch. If it has sources, confirm Deactivate. Its content becomes unavailable in Search, Assistant, and MCP; sources and connected accounts are preserved. Turn the switch back on to allow it again.
Search, Assistant, and MCP
Search in the organization sidebar finds documents directly. The assistant on Home can search and read the same sources to answer questions with citations. Conversations are private to their author, including when another organization member is an admin.
To search from Claude, Codex, Claude Code, or Cursor, open Settings → Search MCP, choose your app, and copy its URL, command, or configuration. Connect in that app, sign in to Sim, and approve read-only Search access. No API key is needed. In Claude Team or Enterprise, an owner adds the custom connector before members connect.
For another client, choose Other and use the server URL with Streamable HTTP and OAuth. The client must support remote MCP authentication. When adding configuration to an existing file, keep your other MCP servers.
Each person signs in with their own Sim account. MCP applies their current organization membership and document access; connecting an app does not add sources or grant new document permissions. To disconnect an app, open Settings → General → Authorized apps and revoke it.
MCP provides three tools for your organization:
- search finds indexed passages. Narrow results by source, modification date, or document.
- read_document opens an indexed document by ID or its original URL. Read around a matching passage or page through longer documents. Results include a citation link.
- chat asks the Sim Assistant for an answer with citations. Each call starts a new private conversation and can use the same search filters.
Search MCP is available in organization settings. All three tools use the caller’s current document permissions. They do not browse the web or change connected sources.
Existing workspace Search
Workspace Search remains separate. Workspace admins add sources through Search → Add source; the member-account action is Create & Invite. Teammates need workspace access and connect from its source list. Organization Search does not automatically include workspace sources or grant access to workspace content.
Check that it works
- Let the first sync finish, then search for a distinctive phrase in a document you can open in the source.
- Open the result's source link and confirm the document is the expected one.
- Ask a teammate with different source access to repeat the search. Documents restricted to you should not appear for them.
- Change or remove a test document's access in the source and check again after the next completed content and permission refresh.
Search runs background syncs on an hourly schedule. Large sources, provider limits, and indexing queues can delay completion. Results are indexed copies, so edits and access changes are not fetched live for every query.
If indexing needs attention
A completed sync means the source was checked; some documents may still be indexing. In the main Integrations page, each source row shows how many documents you can search and whether indexing failed for any documents you can access.
As an admin, open Settings → Sources, select Manage beside the integration, then open the source. In Documents, select Failed from the status dropdown to inspect those files. Use the search field to find a document by name. Select Retry indexing beside a file to try again. Exclude removes a file from search; select Excluded and then Restore to include it again. Fix a disconnected account or source configuration before retrying a sync that needs attention.
Temporary indexing-capacity waits retry automatically in the background. If automatic retries are exhausted, the document appears as failed so an admin can retry it. Other searchable documents remain available while this work finishes.
These guides cover permission-aware Search sources. For a general knowledge base used by workflows, see Knowledge-base connectors; its workspace access settings are a separate choice.