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      What are plugins?

      Description

      Plugins are used to expand the functionality of DISQOVER (search, processing, and ingesting) using easy to install pre-structured Python scripts. Different types of plugins exist that are all written, installed and handled in a similar way. Plugins can be installed by DISQOVER Expert users.

      Plugin types

      DISQOVER makes a distinction between three types of plugins:

      • Instance-processor plugin: To post-process results of a dashboard, such as custom file-format export, report generation, data push to third-party software, and much more.
      • Instance-search plugin: An alternative for the DISQOVER default text-search e.g., using chemical drawings to do structure similarity searches, ... See figure below for an example.
      • Event-processor plugin: To perform an action at regular time intervals or when an event (e.g., execution of a pipeline, update of a watched dashboard) occurs. Examples are starting the download of third-party data, sending a message to communication channels (e.g., Slack, e-mail, …).

      Instance searchInstance-search plugin: a search entity is pushed from the search page to the plugin for further customized processing and the results are displayed back to the user. This allows for custom searching while maintaining the normal search principles of DISQOVER.

      The Data Ingestion Engine makes a distinction between the following types of plugins:

      • Batch-transform plugin: Can be used to manipulate, enrich, process... data with on top of the default components. Examples are enriching data by connecting to an NLP service, applying AI models to the data, doing complex transformations, ... See figure below for an example.

      • Batch-aggregate-transform plugin: Can be used to aggregate data in a class and use that in the transformation of the same or another class (similar to the regular Aggregate and Transform component but with custom processing code).

      Batch transferBatch-transform Data Ingestion Engine plugin. Data is pushed to a new component in the pipeline with customized data processing functionality. The enriched data is fed back to the Data Ingestion Engine for further processing and manipulation using the default components.

      With the correct user rights users can find an overview of the installed DISQOVER and Data Ingestion Engine plugins in the Plugins section of the Admin panel with more information on the status, descriptions, etc. of the installed plugins.

      Available plugins

      A list of released plugins can be found in the Asset Center.