The Basics

Your Data

You already have a website or ecommerce site. These are essentially collections of fields as far as a search index is concerned. Fields like the title, description, featured image, etc are indeed stored as fields in HawkSearch. These fields can be used for tabs in the search results or as facets for example. This information needs to be pulled out of your system so they can be indexed in HawkSearch. This is typically done through an integration with your existing system handled through a HawkSearch connector for example or built specifically by your team or the HawkSearch Professional Services team.

HawkSearch Fields

The fields in HawkSearch will match to those fields from your system. Note that all attributes and content coming from your system are stored as fields in HawkSearch. There are a significant number of configuration settings you can place on a field. What type of field is it for example (text or date are options). The next section of this guide about Configuring Your HawkSearch Engine highlights these options for you.

Merchandising

Once your fields are set up and the data from your system of record are being sent to HawkSearch, it is time to apply the appropriate settings that relate to your Merchandising needs. Do you want to boost specific products? Should some products be hidden from specific visitors? Are there synonyms you would like to apply or keywords you would like to replace. These features are explained in the Workbench Guide.

The Indexing Process

The merchandising settings discussed above will not be applied to the content in your index until you run the Indexing Process itself. This is typically done when content updates are sent to HawkSearch from your system - most likely on a timed interval. The process is also included in our connectors to automate this process. There is also an API that allows you to programmatically rebuild the index as needed.

Integrating HawkSearch with your Website

Now that you have all of your data in HawkSearch, and you've set up all of your merchandising settings and the Index Process has been run, you can now embed the search experience on your Website. This can be done a number of ways:

1. API - your programmers can call the HawkSearch Search API directly from your website or application and then display the results however they like. Sometimes we describe this like providing lumber to a homebuilder - the builder can do whatever they want with the lumber to build the house.
2. SDK - this is a tool for developers to more easily embed components of the search experience directly into their programming framework of choice (VUE, React or .NET). Using that builder metaphore it would be like providing pre-fab walls for building your house. You still need to put the pre-fab pieces together, but it's still a big time saver.
3. Connector - similar to the SDK approach (typically it includes an SDK) but it also includes support for the indexing process as well described above. So in the house example it's like also getting the foundation - not just the lumber
4. Rapid UI Framework - this is an embedded solution that lets you quickly add the main search experiences on your site. To continue the house building metaphore - it's like buying a pre built model home. There are still some things you can do to adjust it, but it's pre-built, so you can move in very quickly.

All of these options are described on our Developer Portal.

Analyzing your Results

HawkSearch not only provides the tools for configuring great search results, it also tracks the outcomes of those search experiences on your site. This data is available through a large number of reports which can be viewed in HawkSearch, viewed in our Advanced Analytics tool in e360 or downloaded and uploaded into the Business Intelligence report of your choice.

Going Beyond "Search"

Considering all of the analysis that HawkSearch does on site activity and all of the fields stored in the Index, there is a great opportunity to engage visitors through more than just the search bar and search results. HawkSearch supports Recommendations which leverage machine learning and AI to analyze site activity and "recommend" the right content to the right person at the right time.