Facets and Facet Values

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Product grid pages typically have filter options shown to the user to help them reduce the number of items on the page to find what they are looking for. Those filter options need to be relevant to the result set on a given page. Bloomreach's algorithms have the ability to optimize the filter options shown (facets) by using engagement data. However, some users may prefer to manually make changes to the facets on individual pages or across the site.  Facet management gives users the ability to curate facets and the facet values on their Bloomreach powered pages.

Example of Facet Management 

Emilio is looking for a bouquet of flowers to decorate his dining table for a special occasion. Perfect Blossom is an online retailer of flowers and houseplants. He navigates to Perfect Blossom's For the Home category page, which offers more than 100 products. Emilio doesn't want to spend a lot of time on this purchase. He's pretty sure that he wants an assortment of different flowers, mostly in shades of yellow. He doesn't want to spend more than $150 on the flower arrangement. His spouse's favorite flowers are daisies.

Emilio quickly narrows his search from 100 products to 11, which he considers a manageable size. He clicks the following facets, which are displayed as dropdown lists at the top of Perfect Blossom's For the Home category page:

• Color: yellow
• Flower: daisies
• Price: < $200 

Facet & Facet Value Customizations

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You can set rules to customize how facets and the facet values are displayed and ordered on your site.  Certain rules can be applied to a single category page, a set of search terms, or all pages on your site (global).  In terms of terminology, a facet represents a product attribute (e.g. Color, Style, etc.), whereas a facet values represents all the available values for each product attribute (e.g. Color - red, white, blue; Style - striped, ruffled, cropped).

Setting Up Rules

Depending on whether or not you want to customize category, search, or global facets and facet values, you'll go to a different part of the Bloomreach Dashboard.

On each of these locations mentioned above, you will see a list of existing facet and facet value rules. To create a new facet rule, click the + New rule button, which opens the facet rule editor (For Search and Category rules, enter a search query for your rule here). To edit an existing facet rule, click on any of the rules to see the customization details. 

If you want to create a new facet value rule, either add a new or select an existing facet rule, and then click on the "Edit value" button next to each facet to open the facet value rule editor (see image below).

In this guide, we walk you through the available customizations taking the Global facet management page as an example, and the same steps are applicable for Category and Query level facet management. These operations also work for existing rules.

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Note

If you exclude a particular facet in the Global Facets management, then this facet will show up under Other Attributes category in the Page Editor UI under Attribute > Create New Attribute Rule > Product Description Attributes when you create a new attribute rule. Although its values can still be used for creating ranking rules, it will not show up in the Top Attributes section as that section is preserved for attributes returned by our API.

For example, when you exclude "Primary Category", in the Global Facet Management, the facets under "Primary Category" will appear under Other Attributes.

Facet Renaming

Users can change the display name of a facet.

To rename a facet value, follow these steps:

1. Go to the following location in your Bloomreach Dashboard: Setup → brSM global configurations → Global facet management
2. Click + New rule.
3. You will see a list of facets appear. Click on the Edit icon next to the facet name you wish to change and enter the new facet name. 
4. Click Save.

Facet Value Renaming

Users can rename a facet value that appears in a specific facet.  

To rename a facet value, follow these steps:

1. Go to the following location in your Bloomreach Dashboard: Setup → Discovery global configurations → Global facet management 
2. Click + New rule.
3. Select the facet containing the values you wish to rename by clicking on Edit value. A window will pop up.
4. You will see a list of facet values. Click on the Edit icon next to the facet value name you wish to change and enter the new facet value name. 
5. Click Save.

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Audience targeting and facet management

Please note that when an audience is set for a global facet, facet renaming and facet value editing become disabled.

Facet Reordering 

Facet reordering allows you to customize the order in which your facets appear on your site. With this functionality, you can determine which facets appear on your site and their order. Facets can apply to a list of category pages, a set of search results, or all pages on your site. Here is how you start:

1. To set a rule, go to the following location in your Bloomreach Dashboard: Setup → Discovery global configurations → Global facet management.
2. Click + New rule, which opens the facet rule editor. 
3. The editor displays a list of facets available to you (make sure to enter a category or query if you are creating a rule for category or search pages, respectively). For each facet, you have these choices in the Order column:

Notes 

1. When you change the order of 2 or more facets, you can reorder them in the dashboard using the up (▲) or down (▼) arrows in the list of facets under the Modified tab.

2. Similar to text facets, you can also reorder ( Boost & Always Show, Bury & Always Show, Always Show, and Always Hide ) numeric facets on the dashboard.

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Please note that this is only available to customers using the V3 Facet response format. From September 7, 2023, onwards, all new customers will be on V3 Facet response by default.

If you integrated before September 7, 2023, kindly contact your Bloomreach Services representative to implement the new response format.

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Known Issues

• In the Preview module, the "Show changes" option displays incorrect facet ranking after reordering the numeric facets. This is because the Preview module currently does not support facets configured as range buckets and sliders. We will add support for displaying these correctly in the upcoming release.
• In Ranking Diagnostics, slider values are displayed based on the products available in recall.
  Let's say we have a range of product prices from 0 to 10, and we want to apply a slider filter to fetch products within a specific price range of 3.5 to 5.
  Now, let's assume there are no products available at the exact price of 3.5, but the lowest priced product available is 4. In such a case, instead of showing the slider minimum as 3.5, we will adjust it to the next available value, which is 4. Therefore, the the slider will display the price range values from 4 to 5.

Facet Value Reordering

Facet value reordering allows you to customize the order in which your facet values appear on your site. To reorder facet values, follow these steps:

1. Go to the following location in your Bloomreach Dashboard: Setup → Discovery global configurations → Global facet management. 
2. Click + New rule.
3. Select the facet containing the values you wish to reorder by clicking on Edit value.  A window will pop up.
4. You will see a list of facet values. For each facet, you have these choices below in the Order column. Select one of the options below for each facet value and then click on Save.

Notes 

• Any change to the facet values sort order will override any global facet value sort order.
• When you change the order of 2 or more facet values, you can reorder them in the dashboard using the up (▲) or down (▼) arrows in the list of facet values under the Modified tab.

Add Facet

At the local (category or search page) level, the facets listed are pulled from the frontend API response. However, a user may see a difference between what is displayed in the API response and the default set of facets in the Facet Management dashboard due to the facets that were globally blocked or static facets that were hard coded. To see all facets, a user can either increase the facet limit global setting such that more facets are returned or utilize the “Add Facet” functionality to search for the facet they want to configure.

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Known Issue

A search query must be entered before your Added facets show up in the list. If you added facets without selecting a search term, they will only show up once a search term is entered.

Range Facets

For a given facet attribute, allow the facet ranges to be defined (e.g., $0-200, $201-500, etc...).  A user can set the range to show left close (eg: $0-$99.99, $100-$199.99), right close (eg: $0-100, $100.01-200), or left and right close (where the system will not transform on either end of the range and any product that has the exact value of the start or end range will be counted).

You can configure range facets in two styles

• Buckets: Group facet values in range buckets
• Slider: Set facet values to display as a slider with a minimum and maximum value of that facet.

Buckets Configuration

You may have use cases where you’d like to display the facet values in range buckets. To configure facet range buckets, follow these steps:

1. Go to the following location in your Bloomreach Dashboard: Setup → Discovery global configurations → Global facet management
2. Click + New rule.
3. Click on the Edit range button next to the facet you wish to configure range values for. Typically, this is a facet that is numeric (e.g. price).
   
4. The Range settings modal opens up. By default, the Range Style is set to Buckets. The Buckets option allows you to set the range values.

5. Add your range buckets by clicking on + Add Bucket (you must have a minimum of two).
6. Select the order of the range (Low to High or High to Low) and the Range Close (Left Close, Right Close, or Left and Right Close).
7. Click Save.

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Configuring new numeric range facets

To set a new numeric facet range that is not already present in the dashboard, please contact our Support team as it must be configured as a numeric facet

Slider Configuration

You may have use cases where you’d like to display the maximum and minimum values of specific attributes like price, sale_price, length on a slider.

To enable the slider component for a facet, follow the steps below;

1. Go to Setup → brSM global configurations → Global facet management.
2. Select the global facet rule. This takes you to the Facet Rule Editor.
3. Now, search for the numeric facet and choose the Edit Range option.
4. This opens the Range settings modal. The Range Style is set to Bucket by default. Choose the Slider option to enable the slider for the selected facet.
5. Click Save.

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Please note that this is only available to customers using the V3 Facet response format. From September 7, 2023, onwards, all new customers will be on V3 Facet response by default.

If you integrated before September 7, 2023, kindly contact your Bloomreach Services representative to implement the new response format.

Notes

• The Slider component on the dashboard is read-only. You can make facet configurations on the FE API. Therefore you can set the slider on the dashboard, and add filters on the FE API.
• You can only use either the slider or bucket range at one time.

Passing range buckets/slider both on the Dashboard and API

If you set range/slider on the dashboard but also explicitly pass these values on the API (using stats.field or facet.range), then the API values will override the dashboard ones.

Facet Value Merging

Users can merge two facet values together (i.e. White and Off-White = White) if they want to consolidate facet values that are similar. 

  To merge two values together, follow these steps:

1. Go to the following location in your Bloomreach Dashboard: Setup → Discovery global configurations → Global facet management. 
2. Click + New rule.
3. Select the facet containing the values you wish to merge by clicking on Edit Value.  A window will pop up.
4. You will see a list of facet values. Click on the checkbox next to each of the facet values.
5. Click on the Merge Values button.
6. Specify a name for the merged value to use.
7. Click Save.

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When you merge facet values into a group and set it to "Algo control", the merged group's ranking depends on the highest-ranking facet value in that group.

Imagine a group "More colors" that merges the facet values Red, Blue, and Green. If the Blue facet value is ranked first in the list of all facet values, then the "More colors" group will appear at the top of the results.

Please note that facet value merging is only available for Global Facets.

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Known Issue

If you're using facet value merge on a multi-valued field, there is a possibility that the facet value count won’t be accurate.

Max Number of Facets

You can limit the number of facets shown globally on all your pages. For example, you can limit the maximum number of facets displayed on each page to 5, and Bloomreach will return only the top 5 facets.

The value for this setting can not exceed 50. 

To configure the max number of facets to show, follow these steps:

1. Go to the following location in your Bloomreach Dashboard: Setup → Discovery global configurations → Global facet management. 
2. Click + New rule.
3. Click Show next to Advanced global settings.
4. Enter the number of facets under Max number of facets the default algo returns.
5. Click Save.

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Facet Count Limitation

For facet limits, the default is set to 50. For a merchandiser with this default setting, if they see 20 facets being returned, it means that there are only 20 relevant facets. However, when this is manually set to 20, the expected 20 facets should be returned. However, you may get lesser than this if you have hidden facets, which will not get returned. Since the hidden facets are excluded post search processing, we return lesser than 20. This impacts the facets being retrieved when the facet limit is changed from the default.

Max Number of Facet Values (For a Single Facet)

Users can configure the maximum number of facet values to display for an individual facet. The value for this setting can not exceed 1000.

To configure the max number of facet values to show, follow these steps:

1. Go to the following location in your Bloomreach Dashboard: Setup → Discovery global configurations → Global facet management. 

2. Click + New rule.

3. Select the facet you want to set a max value for by clicking on Edit Value. A window will pop up.

4. You will see a text box next to Max number of facet values. Enter the maximum number of facet values you wish to show.

   

5. Click Save.

Max Number of Facet Values in Any Facet, On Any Page

The user can specify how many facet values they would like to display for each facet in their results. For example, if you enter 600 in this field, we will return a max of 600 facet values for all facets on any query or category page. Its value range is from 1 - 1000.

To configure the max number of facet values in any facet, follow these steps:

1. Go to the following location in your Bloomreach Dashboard: Setup → Discovery global configurations → Global facet management. 

2. Click + New rule.

3. Click Shownext to Advanced global settings.

4. Enter the number of facet values under Max number of facet values in any facet, on any page.

   

Facet Sort Order

Bloomreach automatically sets a default sort ordering for facets based on user interaction with facets (e.g., the most relevant facets display first). We've added the ability for customers to set the facet ordering by Alphabetical Ascending (A-Z), Alphabetical Descending (Z-A), Product Count Ascending (Lowest - Highest), Product Count Descending (Highest - Lowest).

To configure facet sort order, follow these steps:

1. Go to the following location in your Bloomreach Dashboard: Setup → Discovery global configurations → Global facet management. 
2. Click + New rule.
3. Click Show next to Advanced Global Settings.
4. Select the sort order under Default sort algorithm of facet values in any facet, on any page.

Other features as a part of Facet Management

Alphabetical vs. Modified: You will notice there are two links above the table that lists all the facets and facet values on various screens.  The default listing of the facets and facet values are shown in alphabetical order.  However, if you would like to see if there are any facets or facet values that have been boosted, buried, shown, or hidden, you can click on the modified link to display them.

Preview: Click on the preview button shown at the top of the facet management screens to see how the facets would look for specific search or category pages.

Duration: Users can apply Global Facet Rules, Search Facet Rules, and Category Facet Rules for a specific duration of time.

Audience: Users can set Global Facet Rules, Search Facet Rules, and Category Facet Rules to only apply to a certain target audience that they create within the Targeting tab.

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Handling SKU Based Attributes

Currently, for any product, the dominant SKU attributes are mapped as the default for that PID. For example, if PID1 has 3 SKUs SK1, SK2, SK3 and if SK1 is the dominant SKU for PID1, the attributes of SK1 is mapped to the PID1 which is then allowed for faceting/merchandising etc.