Export Overview

Owned by Liliya Burlakova (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jul 02, 2021 by andrey.sotirov (Deactivated)
3 min read

Goal

In this article, you will find information about running and executing the export. When and why should the export functionality be used.

Prerequisite

Installed Sitefinity connector -

The main purpose of the export:

Hawksearch can work on the following two environments: V4 and V4L. The exporter takes a major role in the second one. Тo index the items that we want the customer to search through, we need first to export in separate files the whole information about these content types and records. This information is then being uploaded and indexed so it can be visible on the page where the Hawksearch result widget is placed.

Main specifications of the export:

Since the Exporter is now CMS independent and can be used with any .NET system, it plays a significant role in the Hawksearch.SDK project. This way it gives the freedom to the customer to use the V4L version with different systems.

You can learn more about the different export modes in the following article:

What settings do we need?

For using the manual mode (required for the V4L environment) the following settings need to be configured. First, the V4L needs to be selected from the dropdown menu.

  • Go to Administration

  • Choose Settings

  • Go to Advanced

  • Select Hawksearch

  • Select V4L from the dropdown menu

 

You have to specify a path to a folder on your machine, on which the exported files to be stored. This is a simple configuration setting:

  • Go to Administration

  • Choose Settings

  • Go to Advanced

  • Select Hawksearch

  • Write your desired destination in the ExportDirectory tab

How to run an Export?

There are 2 types of export available: Full and Delta.

  • The Full export takes all records of the selected content types in the Hawksearch Administration. (Administration -> Hawksearch Administration)

  • The Delta export takes only the records that have been modified since the last export.

The export will be started only for the content types and the sites selected in the Hawksearch Administration.

The second step is to choose what kind of export you would like to run. There are 2 buttons the backend user can click: “Run Full Export Now” or “Run Delta Export Now”.

Hawksearch provides also the option to schedule an export. This is possible by pressing the “Schedule“ button in the upper right corner in the Hawksearch Settings window. A delta export can be set for a particular interval of minutes and a full export can be set for a Daily or Weekly export at a particular time.

Differences between Delta and Full Export

The Full Export is taking all records of chosen content types. It’s recommended to use this kind of export when creating an index for the first time or if new content types or sites are being added.

The Delta Export is taking only the records that have been modified since the last export. It’s the better option when only some items are being modified and there is no need to export all records. But if there is a new item created from a content type that is not being indexed then prefer the Full Export.

The Hawksearch Administration provides a very convenient way to select items from the list of content types and export only those that are being modified: Pending Records.

This is a field that shows a number of changed items, that will be exported when running a Delta Export.

For a User, this can be used as an orienteer, if there is a need to add new content types and do a full export or not.

Next steps