2. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising dynamically inheriting changes from the template source to the user-described source for each subsequent crawl.
1. A method of utilizing a self-service source, the method comprising: defining a template source for crawling a target data repository; identifying the target data repository in the template source without including in the template source security credentials required to crawl the target data repository; allowing a first user to subscribe to the template source; receiving first user credentials for the first user; creating a user-subscribed source based at least on the template source and the first user credentials; generating an access control list that controls access to the user-subscribed source; receiving a crawl request from a second user of one or more users to crawl the target data repository; based on user credentials of the second user and the access control list that controls access to the user-subscribed source, determining to allow the second user to initiate a crawl using the user-subscribed source; and crawling the target data repository, using the first user credentials, to index only documents which are accessible with the first user credentials.