One search across every system.With the searcher’s own permissions.

Every passage in the index carries the permissions from its source system, and the search runs in the context of the signed-in user. The check happens in the database before a hit exists. An interface that hides things afterwards is not a permission check, it is a blindfold. If permissions change in the source system the next run follows them, for sensitive areas immediately.

No. Enterprise search sits over the existing systems and reads them. The source system stays authoritative, the index is a copy for finding. That is exactly why you can start small: two systems, then you decide about the rest.

A search across mailboxes and cases is subject to co-determination, and that belongs at the start rather than the end. What is logged, who sees the analytics and what is explicitly not analysed is something I put in writing before the first run starts.

With a usable API, usually days. Without one, the route decides the effort: database access, an export folder, SFTP. That is everyday work with systems that have been running for ten years, and no reason to leave them out.

Corpora of scans without a text layer, or folders with no structure at all, need preparation. What that costs stands in the survey report, not in the invoice after the build.

The passage disappears from the index. For access and erasure requests there is a run that covers both.

By a test set of real searches and by how often the wanted document was among the first five hits. Plus the list of searches with no hits. That is the most honest report the system produces, and it usually shows missing documents rather than a search problem.

The same technology, a different interface and a different promise. Enterprise search returns hits with context to click through, RAG turns those into an answer with evidence. Usually both are built on the same index, and the foundation is paid for once.

Schema, connection runs, permission model and test set. Every connection is its own readable unit, including the ones somebody else adds later.