Business rules

A business rule is a setting that can be resolved from a search request. It is recommended that the business rules are managed via the Admin UI, but they can be set up via the Admin API. See the full API reference here.

There are 5 different types of business rule actions. These actions configure the behavior of the search. For each business rule, the one with the best matching conditions is used.

A business rule consists of:

• Business rule id is used to uniquely identify the business rule.
• Name assigns an easy-to-read name to the business rule.
• Conditions are used to resolve the correct business rule when searching.
• Business rule action define the intended search behavior for the business rule.

Business rule conditions

Business rule conditions are used to specify which business rules are used. The more conditions that match data in the search request, the more relevant the business rule is. For each business rule action, the most relevant business rule with all conditions met is used.

graph TD;
    _f[fallback

Fallback]
    _f --> _browse[business_rule_browse

Scope = Browse]
    _f --> _search[business_rule_search

Scope = FullSearch]
    _browse --> _cat[business_rule_clothing

Category = Clothing]
    _cat --> _red[Color = Red] --> _size[business_rule_red_xl

Size = xl]
    _cat --> _yel[business_rule_yellow

Color = Yellow]

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{
    "segmentId": "b2c-en-test",
    "scopeId": "browse",
    "filters": {
        "CategoryNames": {
            "values": [
                "Clothing"
            ],
            "match": "any"
        },
        "color": {
            "values": [
                "red"
            ],
            "match": "any"
        },
        "size": {
            "values": [
                "xl"
            ],
            "match": "any"
        }
    },
    "phrase": ""
}

The business rule conditions that can be used are:

• Attributes
• Targets
• Scopes
• Categories
• If the search request contains a phrase
• If the search request contains a specific phrase

Business rule condition priority

Business rule conditions are prioritized in this order:

• Targets
• Scope
• Is Phrase search
• Is Phrase search with specific phrase
• Categories
• Other filters

If there are two business rules, one with a scope condition and one with a category condition, and a search request matches both, the business with the scope condition is used because it has the higher priority.

Fallback business rule

Each segment must have a fallback relevance boost business rule which is used if no other matching relevance boost business rule can be found. The fallback relevance boost business rule cannot have any conditions or be inactive, but otherwise behaves as other relevance boost business rule. Each segment must have exactly one fallback relevance boost business, if not, a conflict occurs in the publication.

Business rule actions

These are the following actions. they are described in detail below:

• Affinities
• Facets
• Parameters
• Pinned products
• Relevance boost

Affinities

Affinity business specify how much a person's affinity for the product should count in the score.

The sort order of the products is updated live as the weights are changed, allowing for an experimental approach.

Facets

Facet business rules set up which facets should be returned in a search response.

Each facet business rule can have one facet for each allowed filter. The match type is specified when a facet business rule facet is selected. The order of the facets when editing a facet business rule reflects the order of facets in search responses.

Parameters

Parameters are used to control the sorting of products. A partition is multiplied by a weight and added to a parameter business rule. See commercial properties for more information.

An example of two partition weights could be: Products that are in the 10% most sold products have a weight of 10, and products that are in stock have a weight of 5.

Product pinning

Product pinning bypasses commercial sorting.

If a search request is sent with pinned ids, these will take priority over saved ids on the business rules.

Each product pinning business rule can have up to 200 pinned products/SKUs.

Relevance boost

Search relevance is used to configure how important a phrase match is compared to other contributions. Often, a match in the name or short description of a product is more important than a match in long description. Also, a match on the product number is often the most important.

It is possible to choose the following weights:

• Very High
• High
• Medium
• Low

Only fields that have been configured as searchable can be assigned a search relevance.

While editing a business rule, a search will show how much it boosts every product, and changes to the Search relevance will affect the live preview immediately.

Publication

Changes to business rules will only take effect after publication. Only active business rules will be used for searches.