In this article you will find:
Table of Contents
Methods
The goal of this document is to provide a high level overview of the three User Interface Implementation methods offered with Hawksearch. Along with this high level overview, our team can provide more in depth technical documentation on each of the implementation methods as needed.
Overview
Hawksearch is an enterprise-grade platform that can be hosted on-premise or delivered as SaaS. When visitors search or navigate throughout your site, queries are directed to your Hawksearch engines. These engines then send the results back to your site for display. Since the response is being displayed on your site, the relevant results match the look and feel of your site. Hawksearch is completely behind the scenes and our options eliminate the need for older integration approaches such as using subdomains.
JavaScript
The JavaScript implementation is the quickest method to implementing Hawksearch on your site. On average, sites that choose the JavaScript method are able to implement Hawksearch on their site within 2 hours. The process involves placing our JavaScript code snippet on your site, similar to how you might add the code snippet for Google Analytics tracking on your site. Additionally, empty DIV tags will need to be added to the body of your HTML pages. Once in place, the Hawksearch JavaScript code uses the empty DIV tags to inject the relevant content such as intelligent search results, robust navigation choices, and dynamic landing pages.
This option is not available if you require Hawksearch to power your site’s Top Level Navigation.
Click here to download the PDF with details. UI Integration - Hawksearch - JavaScript- 2020Q1.pdf
API
The API implementation method is our most advanced choice for implementation. This method allows you to make direct calls to the Hawksearch engines, and to then receive the entire response (i.e. navigation info, search results, and any merchandising) in JSON or XML formats. You need to be able to transform this JSON/XML response into a displayable results list. However, this does offer you the most control over the look and feel of your results page – along with being able to add any additional business logic (i.e. complex pricing logic, real time inventory displays, etc.). This is a popular option for clients who are already using API calls, and have the infrastructure and resources in place to support a JSON/XML response.
Click here to download the PDF with details. UI Integration - API – Hawk Search – 2019Q3.pdf
Hybrid
The Hybrid implementation method is our most popular choice for implementing Hawksearch on your site. The popularity comes from allowing more customization than the basic JavaScript approach, but not requiring the development time needed to adopt a full API approach. As the name suggests, the Hybrid method uses elements of both the JavaScript and API implementations.
This implementation involves the creation of a shell page that makes use of the JavaScript code to call results from Hawksearch. The engines then have the ability to send a response back that contains both static HTML and dynamic JSON/XML. The navigation and merchandising results are sent in static HTML – similar to the JavaScript approach. The search results are returned in either JSON or XML format – similar to the API implementation. Sending the search results back in these formats allows you to take advantage of any additional business logic you may want to apply, and allows for further customization of the results.
Click here to download the PDF with details. User Interface Integration- Hybrid_Proxy-2019Q3.pdf
Quick Reference Guide
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UI Integration Type
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Benefits
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Requirement
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Caveats
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Customer Examples
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JavaScript
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Easiest integration
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Ability to add JavaScript tags to a page
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Unable to power Top Level Navigation
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API
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Complete control of the search results
Ability to add additional business logic into results
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Front end development efforts
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Changes managed in the workbench need to be supported on site end instead of directly from Hawk
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Hybrid
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Ability to add additional business logic into results
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Light front end development efforts
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Initial implementation requires more effort than the JavaScript approach
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| Excerpt |
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There are multiple points of integration that will leverage the Hawksearch functionality. |
Autocomplete
Search Results/Listing Pages
Recommendation Widgets
Event Tracking
Technical details can be found in the API documentation:
Hawksearch v2.0L - v4.0L (Lucene)
If you are using Hawksearch v4.0 and looking to accelerate development, we have these UI SDKs available that allow you to quick start development and build out components faster.