Proxy/Hybrid Plugin

In this article you will find:



Overview

This document describes the process of installing the Magento Plugin on commercial or Enterprise version of Magento. The plugin will help you get your site up and running with Hawksearch. Hawksearch is a SaaS application that offers advanced search capabilities to e-commerce and publishing websites. Hawksearch has been installed on a number of e-commerce websites that are built on Magento Platform (Community & Enterprise).

The document will describe in detail the process of installing the plugin on your Magento (community or enterprise version) instance and get Hawksearch up and running on your ecommerce site.

NOTE: These plugins work with the following versions of the Magento Platform.

  • Magento Community (1.6 CE – 1.9 CE)
  • Magento Enterprise (1.11 EE – 1.14EE)

There are currently two separate Magento Extensions available for Hawk. These two extensions can be installed separately and can work independently.

  1. Hawksearch Data Export: This plugin will allow you to set up the data feeds for Hawksearch export. These feeds will conform to the guidelines provided in the Hawksearch Data Feed Guidelines.
    NOTE: For additional details regarding the files and file formats please reference the Data Feed Guidelines document
  2. Hawksearch Proxy Hybrid Integration (front end): This plugin will allow you to set up the search page on your Magento site using the Proxy Hybrid integration method. This will cover installation of the search ahead feature on the search textbox as well as the search page.
    NOTE: Please reference the Hawksearch- Hybrid Proxy Integration guide (this document) for details regarding the Hybrid Proxy implementation


Installing the Plugin

NOTE: The plugin is not currently available in the Magento market place. Please talk to your sales representative on Hawksearch for receiving the code for the plugin.

There are two ways of installing the Magento plugin

  1. Using the “Magento Connect Manager”
  2. Manual Installation – Copying the files directly on your Magento Server 

Using the “Magento Connect Manager”

Step 1: Login to your Magento Backend and click on the System tab on the top navigation. You should see the Magento Connect link on the menu. Mouse over it and click on the Magento Connect Manager as shown in screenshot below.

Step 2: You will be required to login again. Please enter your admin credentials for the “Magento Connect Manager” login.

NOTE: You will be required to have full administration privileges for your Magento account to download this plugin.

 

Step 3: Once authorized you will then be taken to the Magento Connect Manager page as shown in screenshot below.  This is where you will need to upload the compressed file (with .tgz extension) provided to you by your Hawksearch Project Manager.

Step 4: If everything has been installed successfully and you do not run into any issues you should see a message clarifying that the package was installed successfully on the Magento Instance.

Package installed:
 community Hawksearch_Proxy x.x.x
Cleaning cache..

Cache cleaned successfully

 

NOTE: If you see any errors installing the plugin please reach out to your Hawksearch Project Manager or email support@hawksearch.com. 

Manual Installation

If you do not wish to use the Magento Connect Manager, you can install the module manually with the following steps:

  • Backup your store database and web directory
  • Disable compilation if enabled.
  • Unzip the data feed plugin on your computer. Your Hawksearch account manager will provide you with the Hawksearch_Proxy-[version].tgz file.
  • Use your FTP client to upload the “app” and “hawksearch” directories from the unzipped module to your store root.
  • Logout and Login again from the Magento admin (to clear the ACL).
  • Refresh your magneto cache.
  • Re-enable compilation if desired.


Configuration

Configuration of the Hawksearch Proxy module is configuration scope dependent. The tracking URLs and category synchronization job settings are set at the default scope, and the behavior settings are set at the store view level.

Default Scope

On landing on the default configuration page you should now see the Hawksearch Configuration options on the Left Navigation area. Depending on plugins installed (Data Export, Hybrid Proxy or both) you will see one or both of the options under the Hawksearch area. Select the HawkProxy Settings tab.

  1. General tab
    1. The version number is reported.
  2. Proxy Module Settings
    1. Hawksearch Tracking URL (Development)
      This parameter controls the test site URL to point to for Hawksearch test environment (http://test.hawksearch.net)
    2. Hawksearch Tracking URL (Production)
      This parameter controls the production site URL to point to for Hawksearch production environment (http://dashboard-na.hawksearch.com)
  3. Synchronization Settings 
    1. Synchronize
      If you are powering the category pages on your Magento site through Hawksearch, this button will launch a background process that will send basic category data (such as the URL and category ID) to the Hawksearch engine for each managed store view. Categories can be managed individually or globally, see Store View configuration below. Note this does not include product data or product/category associations; use the Hawksearch Data Feed module to synchronize product data.
    2. Enable Cron Sync
      This setting allows you to enable the cron job to synchronize categories on a regular basis.
    3. Cron Expression
      This setting allows you to specify the cron expression to control the schedule for running the synchronization task. Enter a standard 5 part cron expression. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron for more information about cron expressions. Note that the job cannot be scheduled to run more frequently than hourly (Sample for running daily at 2AM: 0 2 * * *).
    4. Cron Email
      This setting allows you to specify an email address that an email should go out to, once Categories have been synchronizes successfully via the cron job.

Store View Scope

  1. General
    1. Enabled
      This setting controls if the plugin has been enabled for the current store view.
    2. Enable logging
      This setting controls if logging is enabled in the current store view. If logging is enabled, data will be saved in var/log/hawkproxy.log. Note that system logging must also be enabled for this to function.
  2. Proxy Module Settings
    1. Engine Name
      This is the engine name to connect to on the Hawksearch site. This will be provided by your Hawksearch project/account manager
    2. Hawksearch API Key
      This is the API key that is used by the module to connect to Hawksearch Rest API to generate the landing pages. This will be provided by your Hawksearch project/account manager
    3. Order Tracking Key
      This is the identifier used to uniquely identify your account in the image pixel that is added to the order confirmation page on the site to track orders and generate appropriate reports in Hawksearch. This will be provided by your Hawksearch project/account manager.
    4. Run Mode
      This indicates if the plugin is currently connected to the staging account or the production account.
    5. Manage Categories
      This setting indicates if categories are managed through Hawksearch. Set to “Yes” to allow the Hawksearch Proxy module to manage your category landing pages.
    6. Manage All Categories
      This setting indicates if all categories are managed through Hawksearch. If set to “Yes”, Hawksearch landing pages will be used for all categories. If set to “No”, only categories with the “Hawksearch Landing Page” setting set to “Yes” will be managed (set via the Magento “Manage Categories” section on the “General” tab).
    7. Manage Search
      This setting indicates that the search is being powered through Hawksearch. See “The Search Box Auto Suggest” below.
    8. Search box HTML ID’s
      This setting should match the Id of the text box for search that is currently used on the header of your Magento site. If your pages use more than one search box, enter the HTML ID’s of each box you wish to attach to the Hawksearch Auto Suggest tool.
    9. Add Custom URL route for search (In development now). Set to “No” for production installations.
    10. Custom search route (in development now).
    11. Use Category URL Suffix (in development now).


Layout Changes

The Hawksearch Proxy module does not alter any existing templates in your store. You may need to alter your existing templates to produce an optimum customer experience.

The Search Box Auto Suggest 

The standard Magneto mini search form has a basic auto suggest tool attached to it in the template file. If you are using the Hawksearch Auto Suggest tool, please remove the Magento Auto Suggest tool from your search form with the following steps:

  1. Locate the search form template in Magento (named “form.mini.phtml” by default). This file is usually found in your themes template folder in “catalogsearch/form.mini.phtml”. If you are not sure which package/theme your store is using, you can follow the following directions to activate “Template Path Hints” and find the exact path to the file.
    1. In the Magento admin, go to System::Configuration.
    2. Change the Configuration Scope to the store view you are using Hawksearch auto suggest with (Note that you must choose a website or store view scope. Path hints cannot be activated globally).
    3. Select Advanced::Developer (usually the last item on the left).
    4. Under the “Debug” tab, set “Template Path Hints” to “Yes”.
    5. Save the configuration.
    6. Clear the Magento cache.
    7. Reload a frontend page that has the search box.
    8. Locate the search box on the page, it should have a small red box above it with the relative path to the “form.mini.phtml” file. This path is relative to your sites “app/design/” folder.
    9. Return to the admin configuration and deactivate the “Template Path Hints”.
  2. Open the “form.mini.phtml” file identified above for editing, and remove the JavaScript lines related to activating the native auto suggest:

     <script type="text/javascript">                                                                    
        //<![CDATA[
            var searchForm = new Varien.searchForm('search_mini_form', 'search', '');
            searchForm.initAutocomplete('<?php echo $catalogSearchHelper->getSuggestUrl() ?>', 'search_autocomplete');
        //]]>
        </script>