Sitecore User Group | Los Angeles, CA | March 16, 2017

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TODAY’S DISCUSSION

1. Welcome!2. A Journey with Coveo for Sitecore3. Overview of Data Exchange Framework

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About DeepthiTechnical Lead, Verndale

Deepthi is a Technical lead at Verndale, leading cross functional teams and helping the team solve tough technical problems. She specializes on SitecoreDevelopment, managing and developing ASP.NET web applications, and leading teams both in and out of the US. She takes immense pride in delivering high quality solutions at any given opportunity. She is a rebel, with a Masters in Computer Science from University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Introductions

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COVEO FOR SITECORE

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A Word on Coveo for Sitecore

Coveo for Sitecore

• Coveo for Sitecore is an integration to Coveo’s full fledged search engine

• It is accessible directly in Sitecore’s control panel

• It enables control over what gets indexed and how

• Allows for building Coveo based search views out of the box

• Interested to learn more? Visit their website or watch this short video

• Version used - Coveo for Sitecore Pro (on-premise version)

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CHALLENGES + GOALS§ Data is very hierarchical in nature for this project § Fields of interest for Coveo filtering were mostly multi valued§ Spanning controls over multiple number fields was an inherent requirement

in our case(not very common per Coveo)§ Debugging efficiently – It is the key to be confident when molding any

product, specifically third party to your needs. We will see some key tools that come in handy.

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PROBLEM SOLVING

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Battle the Hierarchical Data

Coveo for Sitecore

§ Definitely don’t want content author entering these fields multiple times to avoid excessive duplication in parent/child relationships

§ Don’t want to load these relationships on client side as well (which would be expensive)

§ Answer: Computed Fields

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What are Computed Fields?

Coveo for Sitecore

§ A computed field is processed for every Sitecore item that gets re-indexed.

§ A computed field is normally used to add complementary information to indexed Sitecore items.

§ A computed field must be implemented using custom C# code. Since it is executed in the context of Sitecore, you can take advantage of using the Sitecore API.

§ The more complex a computed field logic is, the slower to process it will be.

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Problem Solving

Coveo for Sitecore

Based on our tree structure for content, a move-in ready home (27660..) is a child of Neighborhood in the below example. Per the design, we need latitude/longitude and title from the Neighborhood specific item for move-in ready for display on results.

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How to Add a Computed Field

Coveo for Sitecore

§ You have to implement Sitecore.ContentSearch.ComputedFields.IComputedIndexFieldinterface

§ Add this computed field to your Coveo custom config

§ Use this new computed field on your MVC view

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FILTERING ON MULTI VALUED

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When single is of no awe!!

Coveo for Sitecore

§ The filters chosen to be of importance are not single valued in many instances§ A quick example : Number of Bedrooms – A Coveo facet can only span one field on one

template to compute the range and values available for filtering. § In our case we have two things that are different, we have two fields on Neighborhood

template for bedrooms (Minimum/Maximum) and a move-in ready home will have it’s own unique field for this bedrooms which should be considered on filter

§ Solution – combination of computed field and multi-value

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How to add a Computed Multi Value Field

Coveo for Sitecore

§ You have to implement Sitecore.ContentSearch.ComputedFields.IComputedIndexFieldinterface

§ Add this computed field to your Coveo custom config (Coveo.SearchProvider.Custom.Config)

§ Make this computed field Multi-Value

§ In control properties, check box the ‘Is Multi-Value Field” in Advanced Settings

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Use Computed Multi Value Field Facet

Coveo for Sitecore

§ Add a Facet in /Sitecore/Buckets/Facets

§ This is how the facet looks like on UI

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MULTI-VALUE NUMBER FACET SLIDERS

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Computed and Multi Value Fields are not enough

Coveo for Sitecore

§ We have seen how computed fields and multi-value fields could serve lot of complex use-cases

§ A typical facet slider would work on only one field either traditional sitecore or computed field which is of type number/integer

§ Our requirement is unique per Coveo team where we need a slider that spans across two fields on the same template (multi-valued number field)

§ Solution – Think outside of what Coveo provides OOTB

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There’s got to be a solution

Coveo for Sitecore

§ Facet Slider auto generates minimum and maximum, but, we can choose to turn this off.§ We have custom logic that computes minimum and maximum and assigns it to the facet

slider component on the coveo search view on afterComponentsInitialization event§ Next, we need to instruct Coveo Facet Slider to cater to more than one field when the values

are changed § To do this, first we add a Facet Slider based on one of the fields of our interest on the

template– say Maximum Neighborhood Price and then use disjunction expressions to tackle the remaining field of interest.

§ What are disjunction expressions…

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Disjunction Expressions

Coveo for Sitecore

§ When you want some additional filtering to top off the query that Coveo computes and calls it Advanced Expression

§ When it is used, the final query computation would become (basic advanced constant) OR (disjunction)

§ In action -

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DEBUG LIKE A PRO

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CES Adminstration Tool

Coveo for Sitecore

Browse through your indexes, you can even rebuild, do a full refresh, see activity log

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CES Adminstration Tool

Coveo for Sitecore

Index browser is very handy to see what is the actual data indexed on an item

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CES Administration Tool

Coveo for Sitecore

Cross check your query directly on the index browser

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CES Console

Coveo for Sitecore

See what Coveo is doing behind the scenes when a query is fired through a search component

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Chrome Developer Tools

Coveo for Sitecore

See the calls, look at results. This will give insight on to why you are having issues, if any

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Chrome Developer Tools

Coveo for Sitecore

Also see the form data. Parameters passed on the request

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Sitecore Control Panel

Coveo for Sitecore

Rebuild your indexes or check/update coveo search account configuration

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Sitecore Control Panel

Coveo for Sitecore

Diagnostic Page – Check to ensure all coveo components are up and running. Green is always good sign

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QUESTIONS?

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THANK YOU!With a special thanks to:

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BREAK

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About SandyTechnical Lead, Verndale

Sandy Foley is also a Technical Lead at Verndale. She has a couple of decades of coding experience and is a first-time Sitecore Technologist MVP this year.

She took a break from coding a few years back and dabbled in teaching as a high school and university computer science instructor.

slack and twitter -> @sandyfoley

Introductions

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OVERVIEW OF DATA EXCHANGE FRAMEWORK

OurHackathonJourneyintegratingMicrosoftCognitiveServices’ComputerVision

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Hackathon 2017

Hackathon ideas

• Azure PaaS Module• Sitecore Experience Accelerator• Habitat• Data Exchange Framework

Image source: http://www.sitecorehackathon.org/

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Data Exchange Framework

Sync data between two systems and provide integration reusability

• Sitecore -> 3rd party• 3rd party -> Sitecore• 3rd party -> 3rd party

An ETL• Extract - reading data from a source system• Transform - converting that data into a format that is compatible with a target system• Load - writing the data to the target system

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Data Exchange Framework Example ScenariosExample Source TargetPullcontacts fromaCRMandcreateneworupdateexistingcontactsinxDB

CRM Sitecore

UpdateacontactinaCRMwithinformationabout thatcontactinSitecore

Sitecore CRM

A DEF Provider is set up to:•Establish connection with the 3rd party system• Identify available fields for mapping•Perform the API call to import or extract data from the system

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Available Provider downloads …

Providers:• Sitecore Provider

• xDB record• Template

• Dynamics CRM Provider• File System Provider

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Per Integration Coding Insert/update Salesforce with xDB data

QueryforSitecoreitems

MapSitecorefieldstoSalesforcefields

Establishconnection

withSalesforce

DetermineifrecordexistsinSalesforce

Insert/updateSalesforcerecord

Add/remove field to field mappings within code

Sitecore Salesforce

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Data Exchange Framework Insert/update Salesforce with xDB data

Sitecore Salesforce

AccesstheSitecoreProvider

Endpoint

ReaditemsintothePipelineContext

PipelineSteps

MaptoSitecorefieldsonatemplate

ValueAccessors

&Mappings

AccesstheSalesforceProvider

Endpoint

Iteratethroughlist

andinsert/update

iteminSalesforce

PipelineSteps

Properties:Consumer Secret KeyConsumer PasswordSecurity TokenUrl- test.salesforce.com- login.salesforce.com

Add/remove field to field mappings in configuration (only)

Properties:• Item root• Template(s)• Max count

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Wiring up a new DEF Tenant• Template that contains all fields for mapping• Data Exchange Tenant = single integration– Endpoints for source and target– Structure of the source data as Value Accessors– Structure of the target data as Value Accessors

» Value Readers / Value Writers – (getters/setters) – massaging data– Define the Value Mappings

• Select source and target value accessors• Configure the flow of logic with Pipelines and Pipeline steps• Run or schedule the batch

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MICROSOFT COGNITIVE SERVICES

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Computer Vision

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Computer Vision

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Sitecore Tagging

Pipeline steps• Create/find each tag• Associate it with the image

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Hackathon Result

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Resources

• http://integrationsdn.sitecore.net/DataExchangeFramework/v1.3/• https://github.com/Sitecore/Sitecore.DataExchange.Examples• http://www.sitecorehackathon.org/sitecore-hackathon-2017• https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services/• https://dev.sitecore.net/Downloads/Data_Exchange_Framework.aspx• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boaGaoRKAns

• Adam Conn and Nate Barad – YouTube (example of using a FileSystem Provider)

sitecore slack and twitter -> @sandyfoley

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HACKATHON DEMO

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Different from xConnect?

• Will be available in Sitecore 8.3• Client API that allows you to get information from xDB into 3rd party systems • It doesn’t handle data mapping

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QUESTIONS?

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THANK YOU!