User GuideSettings

Settings

Sana Commerce 8.3
Your provider

Search

Sana Commerce search is based on the Lucene search engine. By adding the product fields to the Lucene index you can extend the webshop search functionality.

The configuration of the Sana Commerce enhanced search settings provides the possibility to search products by different keywords: title, item number, color, size, description and others. The phonetic search can be used. Sorting and filtering can be configured to provide the possibility to the customers to sort the products by different values and refine the search request using the facets.

The search settings can be configured in the backoffice: Settings -> Search:


Webshop Search Settings

The table below provides the description of the search settings:

Search settings Description
Enable phonetic search Phonetic search provides the possibility to search text by phonetic representation of the keywords pronunciation. This allows to search products not by the exact spelling of the words but by their pronunciation. It is useful when the customer does not know the exact spelling of the word or misspelt.

For example, if you are not sure how to spell the word 'discount' you can type 'diskaunt', 'dizkaunt', 'discaunt', in the search field, which is close to the pronunciation of the word 'discount'.

Order list mode This option allows to order several products from the search results page at once.
Show thumbnails This option allows to show/ hide product images on the search results page.
Multiple terms search operator Use multiple terms search operators (AND, OR) to determine the relationship between multiple search terms and as a result to narrow or broaden your search by keywords.
  • AND: Searches for results that include all terms from the query.
    For example, if you search for a 'black shirt', the query will return all items that contain both words 'black' and 'shirt'.
  • OR: Searches for all results that include at least one term from the query.
    For example, if you search for a 'mountain bicycle' the query will return all items that contain either the word 'mountain' or the word 'bicycle' or both.
Wildcard search A wildcard is an asterisk character (*) that is used as a placeholder for any sequence of characters or words. Using wildcard you can search by a part of the word or you can search for a phrase based on core terms. Notice, that if wildcard search is enabled you should not enter the asterisk character (*) in the query, it is used automatically.

Available options:

  • Disabled: If this option is selected the wildcard search is disabled.
  • Trailing: If this option is selected the wildcard character is automatically used at the end of the query.
    For example, if you search for 'bla', the query will return all items that contain words starting with 'bla', for instance 'black'. The query looks 'bla*', thus in the example 'ck' in the word 'black' is substituted with a wildcard character (*).
  • Leading and trailing: If this option is selected the wildcard character is automatically used at the beginning of the query and at the end.
    For example, if you search for 'peak', the query will return all items that contain words with 'peak' in it, for instance 'speaker' or 'loudspeaker'. The query looks '*peak*', thus in the example 's' and 'er' in the word 'speaker' are substituted with a wildcard character (*).

Remember that wildcard search can be used to search by a part of the word as well as part of a phrase.

In the 'Keyword fields' section you can extend the webshop search by adding the fields to the index on which the customer can do the search.

The table below provides the description of the keywords search settings:

Field Description
Field name This dropdown list presents all the fields the customer can search on.
Lookup table name If a field from the 'Item' table in NAV / AX is related to another table and this field is selected in the 'Field name' dropdown, the name of the lookup table will be shown in this column.
Lookup field name This dropdown list provides all available fields from the lookup table which can be selected for display. If no field from the lookup table is selected a value of the field specified in the 'Field name' column will be shown by default.

Using search index fields you can configure filtering and sorting of the products on the search results and product list pages.

The table below provides the description of the facet and sorting settings:

Field Description
Field name This dropdown list presents all fields which can be used for sorting and filtering (using facets) of the products.

These fields are also used for the product sets configuration.

Note: Depending on the type of the field sorting and filtering may not be available.

Sortable This option allows to sort products by the selected field names.

Using the 'Facet settings' section you can configure filtering of products by adding facets to the webshop on the product list and search results pages.

The tables below provide description of the facet settings:

Facet settings Description
Enable facets multiselection This option allows to select multiple facets on the product list and search results pages at once. For example, you want to filter by few brands.
Show facets with empty values This option allows to show or hide the facets in the webshop which do not have values. But you can also edit Sana texts for the empty-valued facets using Frontend editor.

Field Description
Field name

This dropdown list presents all fields which can be used for filtering products catalog using facets. Facet fields become available only after they are added to the search index fields. Thus, when you add a search index field which can be used for facets it becomes available in the 'Field name' dropdown of the facet fields. Depending on the type of the field added to the search index, filtering using facets may not be available as well as sorting.

For all product list pages the default facets specified in this table are used. But they can be redefined for each product list page individually. To do this, go to 'Content -> Product list pages', find the necessary product list page and override the default facets.

Followed by robots Use this option to allow or forbid search engine crawlers to follow the facet items (links) on the product list and search results pages.
Sorting Use up and down buttons to change the order of facets. The facets will be shown in the webshop exactly in the same order as they are defined in the table.

In case if facets multiselection is enabled, when a user filters the products using facets each selected facet is added to the URL. If you have a lot of facets in the webshop it may result in a very long URL that cannot be handled and a user will see an error. If a lot of facets are used in your webshop open Frontend editor and click 'Create Sana texts' at the top pane. Search for the Sana texts with the 'ProductListUrl_NoneSelected' group code. Add a short description to these Sana texts to build the shorter URLs for the facets. For example, if you have filtering by the operating systems the description can be 'OS'.

The field names differ depending on your webshop provider. The field names which are at the head of the list and in bold type are optimized provider fields. The data from the standard fields is retrieved from the 'Items' table in Microsoft Dynamics NAV ('Released products' in Microsoft Dynamics AX), while the data from the optimized fields is retrieved from different places.

The tables below provide the description of the optimized fields:


Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Keyword fields:

Field Description
Color

Used to search products by color and/or size. These two fields are used in the Sana Commerce NAV Connector with Fashion add-on and Sana - LS Retail Connector.

If you use Sana Commerce NAV Connector with Fashion add-on the colors are retrieved from the 'Item Vertical Components' table, while sizes are retrieved from the 'Item Horizontal Components' table.

If you use Sana - LS Retail Connector the fields like color, size, style and others created for item variants are used to search products by color, size, style and other available fields. The data from these fields is retrieved from the 'Extended Variant Dimensions' table.

Size
Description Used to search products by description. If product description is present in the Sana Commerce backoffice the data will be retrieved from the backoffice. If there is no product description in the Sana Commerce backoffice the data is retrieved from the 'Extended Text' table in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. If product description is present in different languages it is also used.
Title Used to search products by name. The data is retrieved from the 'Items' table, the 'Description' field. If product names are present in different languages, then product names translations are also used.
Variant Title Used to search product variants by name. The data is retrieved from the 'Item Variants' table, the 'Description' field. If product variants names are present in different languages, then product variants translations are also used.
Bar Code Used to search products by bar code.

Search index and facet fields:

Field Description Sortable  Facet
Color

Used to filter products by color and/or size. These two fields are used in the Sana Commerce NAV Connector with Fashion add-on and Sana - LS Retail Connector. To be able to use color and size for filtering in standard NAV Connector requires customization.

If you use Sana Commerce NAV Connector with Fashion add-on the colors are retrieved from the 'Item Vertical Components' table, while sizes are retrieved from the 'Item Horizontal Components' table.

If you use Sana - LS Retail Connector the fields like color, size, style and others created for item variants are used to filter products by color, size, style and other available fields. The data from these fields is retrieved from the 'Extended Variant Dimensions' table.

 No  Yes 
Size  No  Yes
Gross weight (orderable products only) Gross weight is not used for sorting or facets. It can be added to the search index to become available as filter for product sets. The data is retrieved from the 'Item Units of Measure' table, the 'Weight' field.  No  No
Price Used to sort products by unit price. The data is retrieved form the 'Items' table, the 'Unit Price' field. The customer specific prices are not used for sorting.  Yes  No 
Product category Used to filter products by product category. The data is retrieved from the 'Item Categories' and 'Product Groups' tables, the 'Description' field, as combination of the item category and product group descriptions. If product categories (item category and product group) are present in different languages, then product categories translations are also used.  No  Yes 
Title Used to sort products by name. The data is retrieved from the 'Items' table, the 'Description' field. If product names are present in different languages, then product names translations are also used.  Yes  No 

Microsoft Dynamics AX

Keyword fields:

Field Description
Color Used to search products by color and/or size. The data is retrieved from the 'Released product variants' table. The colors are retrieved from the 'Color' field, while sizes are retrieved from the 'Size' field.
Size
Description Used to search products by description. If product description is present in the Sana Commerce backoffice the data will be retrieved from the backoffice. If there is no product description in the Sana Commerce backoffice the data is retrieved from 'Presentations' or 'Translations' in Microsoft Dynamics AX. If product description is present in different languages it is also used. For more information about product description in Microsoft Dynamics AX, see 'Product Description'.
Title Used to search products by name. The data is retrieved from the 'Released products' table, the 'Product name' field. If product names are present in different languages, then product names translations are also used.
Variant Title Used to search product variants by name. The data is retrieved from the 'Released product variants' table, the 'Product name' field. If product variants names are present in different languages, then product variants names translations are also used.
Bar Code Used to search products by bar code.

Search index and facet fields:

Field Description Sortable  Facet
Color Used to filter products by color and/or size. The data is retrieved from the 'Released product variants' table. The colors are retrieved from the 'Color' field, while sizes are retrieved from the 'Size' field.  No  Yes
Size  No  Yes 
Gross weight (orderable products only) Gross weight is not used for sorting or facets. It can be added to the search index to become available as filter for product sets. The data is retrieved from the 'Released products' table, the 'Gross weight' field.  No  No
Price Used to sort products by base sales price. The data is retrieved from the 'Released products' table, the 'Price' field.  Yes  No
Product category Used to filter products by product category. The data is retrieved from the 'Item groups' table, the 'Name' field. If item groups are present in different languages, then item groups translations are also used.  No  Yes
Title Used to sort products by name. The data is retrieved from the 'Released products' table, the 'Product name' field. If product names are present in different languages, then product names translations are also used.  Yes  No

Applies to Sana Commerce 8.3 SP1 and Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

The fields that are marked with the '[Attribute]' tag are used to retrieve product attribute values if such are configured in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 for the procurement category hierarchy. For information about product attributes in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, see 'Product Attributes'.


When the search is configured or you change the search settings the index should be rebuilt. In this case you will receive the message that the index should be updated by running the index task.
User GuideSettings