Processing index updates

This guide helps you understand how Bloomreach Discovery processes index updates.

Full refresh and incremental updates

Bloomreach Discovery automatically processes index updates in one of the following modes:

  • Full refresh reprocesses all documents in your catalog. This approach ensures consistency across your entire catalog but takes longer to complete.

  • Incremental update applies only the changes since your last update. This targeted approach typically completes faster than a full refresh.

Understanding update types helps you anticipate processing times and plan your indexing schedule effectively.

How Discovery determines update type

When you trigger an index update, Bloomreach Discovery evaluates several conditions to determine whether to run a full refresh or an incremental update.

A full refresh triggers when any of the following conditions are met.

Send a full feed

A full feed signals that you want to rebuild from your complete source data set. Bloomreach Discovery treats the next update as a full refresh.

Send delta changes that amount to one very large delta change

If your delta jobs modify more than 75% of documents, Bloomreach Discovery processes the update as a full refresh. This is typically faster than applying near full-scale incremental changes individually.

Add or change Dynamic categories

Dynamic category configurations determine which products appear in specific categories. When you modify these configurations, Bloomreach Discovery must recalculate category membership across your entire catalog to ensure accuracy. The next update is a full refresh.

Add or change attribute configuration or other catalog settings

Catalog-level configuration changes impact how Bloomreach Discovery indexes and processes documents across your entire catalog. This triggers a full refresh.

Bloomreach AI/ML signal updates affect indexing

Daily signal processing may trigger a full refresh to apply model-driven or signal-driven changes consistently across your index. When possible, the system aligns these refreshes with your full feed updates to minimize extra rebuilds.

Disaster recovery scenarios

If an incident requires Bloomreach to restore or rebuild indexed data during disaster recovery, the system runs a full refresh to ensure data integrity and consistency.