# Facets and Facet Values

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

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.

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**Note**: Facet value customizations must be done at the Global level.

From each of these locations above, you can see a list of existing facet and facet value rules. To create a new facet rule, click the **Add Rule** button, which opens the facet rule editor. 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, then you first need make sure that you are in Configurations → Settings → Global Facets. Either add a new rule or select an existing rule, then click on the "Edit Value" link next to each facet to open the facet value rule editor (see image below).

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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 (Global Only)

Users can rename a facet globally.

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 "**Add 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 (Global Only)

Users can globally 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 "Add 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 Done.

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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:

• To set a rule for Category Pages: Go to the following location in your Bloomreach Dashboard: **Search & Merchandising → Categories→ Facets**. To create a new facet rule, click the **Add Rule** button, which opens the facet rule editor.

• To set a rule for Search Pages: Go to the following location in your Bloomreach Dashboard: **Search & Merchandising → Site search→ Facets**. To create a new facet rule, click the **Add Rule** button, which opens the facet rule editor.

• To set a rule Globally (impacts all Bloomreach powered pages): Go to the following location in your Bloomreach Dashboard: **Setup → Discovery global configurations → Global facet management**. To create a new facet rule, click the **Add Rule** button, which opens the facet rule editor. 

For all three of the scenarios above, the editor displays a list of facets available to you (make sure to enter in a category or query if you are adding 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. Reordering of [Range Facets](🔗) is not supported.

#### Facet Value Reordering (Global Only)

Facet value reordering allows you to customize the order in which your facet values appear on your site. Please note that _facet value_ reordering is only available for Global Facets.  This means modifications to facet value reordering will apply to all pages 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 "Add 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 Done.

<table> <tr> <td><strong>Sort Option</strong> </td> <td><strong>Sort Order</strong> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Default</strong> </td> <td>Let the Bloomreach Algorithm decide the sort order of facet values. Our algorithm automatically sets a default sort ordering for facet values based on user interaction with facets. </td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Relevance - Descending (High -> Low)</strong> </td> <td>Sort the facet values by boosting the values belonging to dominant categories in the result set and then sorting the values by product count. This allows the system to surface relevant facet values at the top. Read more about relevance-based facet value ranking <a href="https://documentation.bloomreach.com/discovery/docs/facet-ranking">here</a> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Alphabetical - Ascending (A -> Z)</strong> </td> <td>Sort the facet values in ascending alphabetical order </td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Alphabetical - Descending (Z -> A) </strong> </td> <td>Sort the facet values in descending alphabetical order </td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Product Count - Ascending (Less -> More) </strong> </td> <td>Sort the facet values in ascending order based on the product count </td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Product Count - Descending (More -> Less)</strong> </td> <td>Sort the facet values in descending order based on the product count </td> </tr> </table>

**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 a 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 Facet Management dashboard due to facets that were globally blocked or static facets that were hardcoded. 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.

#### Range Facets (Global Only)

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).

To configure ranges for facets, follow these steps:

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

2. Click "**Add Rule**"

3. Select the facet for which you would like to configure range facet values for. Typically, this is a facet that is quantitative (e.g. price)

4. You will see the Facet Value Setting. Add your range buckets by clicking on +Add Bucket (you must have a minimum of two)

5. 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)

6. Click Done

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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

#### Facet Value Merging (Global Only)

Users can merge two facet values together (ie White and Off-White = White) if they want to consolidate facet values that are similar.  This can only be done at a global level.  

  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 "Add 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 Done.

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**Note**: In the case where a merged facet value is “Algo Control”, the ranking of the merged facet value will be determined by the highest rank facet value in the group. For example: Prior to merging, if “black|brown” occupied position 5, “black|natural” occupied position 3 and “black|gray” occupied position 2. The merged facet value, “Forest Green,” will occupy the same position as “black|gray” (position 2), since it originally was the highest ranked facet value. 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 (Global Only)

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. Please note that setting facet maximum limits is only available for Global Facets.  Users can configure the max number of facets to display globally across the site.  Currently, the maximum number of facets you can set is 50.  You can only set less than that. 

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 "Add Rule".

3. In the section "Number of Facets", there is a text box that indicates the max number of facets to show.  Enter in the number of facets you wish to show.

4. 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 he sees 20 facets being returned so he knows there are 20 relevant facets. Now when this is manually set to 20, the expected 20 should be returned. However, you may get lesser than this if you have hidden facets, which do 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.

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#### Max Number of Facet Values (Globally for a Single Facet Only)

Users can configure the maximum number of facet values to display globally for a single facet.  Currently, the maximum number of facet values you can set is 1000.  You can only set less than that.    

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 "**Add 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 Values**".  Enter in the number of facet values you wish to show.

5. Click **Done**.

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

The customer can specify how many facet values they would like to display for each facet in their results globally.  For example, if the business user puts 600 in this field, we will return a max of 600 facet values for all facets for any query or category.  The 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 Add Rule

3. Click Show, next to **Advanced Global Settings**

4. Under **Max number of facet values in any facet, on any page**, configure the number you would like to display

#### Facet Sort Order

Bloomreach automatically sets a default sort ordering for facets based on user interaction with facets (eg: the most relevant facets displays 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 Add 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 out 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.