The Playboard section lets you configure the Empathy Platform Playboard.

You can customize the Playboard for the customer, set up the filters that merchandisers and analysts use to narrow the data shown, determine the Playboard features to activate, and link the Playboard to the product catalog.

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Only Playboard users with permissions for Instance Management can set up and edit the Playboard settings.

When you access the Playboard configuration form for the first time, the Disabled label appears beside the Playboard section in the side menu. This means that there is no active configuration for the service. Once you have created the configuration, you need to enable the Playboard microservice.

To set up the Playboard, you complete these sections:

1. Customize the dashboard with your customer’s branding in the Customization section.
2. Link the product catalog with the Playboard tools in the catalog section.
3. Grant permissions for the Playboard features in the Permissions section.
4. Set up filters to narrow the data shown to merchandisers in the Filters section.
5. Choose the KPIs to display in the Playboard in the KPIs section.
6. Set up the Playboard features available in the instance in the Features section .
7. Enable the Playboard microservice.

The order doesn’t matter, but bear in mind that the information needs to be consistent (i.e. the IDs must match in multiple fields) to configure the microservice correctly.

Customizing the dashboard

This section lets you customize the Playboard in line with the company’s branding. You can change the display name that you provided when you requested the new instance. You can choose the logo used in the top left corner of the Playboard and that identifies the instance in the Instances landing page.

• Instance display name: Descriptive name used for the instance. This is particularly useful when there are several instances for the same customer.
• Logo URL: Link to the logo to be used in the Playboard. The image is used in the Instance landing page, the Instance panel when you click the Instance selector, and as the logo in the top right corner of the Playboard.
  The link must be a public absolute path. The image can be SVG, PNG, or JPG. If you leave this field empty, the Empathy logo is used in the top right corner and the Instance display name is used to identify the instance in the Instance landing page and the Instance panel.
• Responsive logo URL: Link to the isotype to be used in the Playboard. The image is displayed when the Playboard menu is minimized and in the Instance selector.
  The link must be a public absolute path. The image can be SVG, PNG, or JPG. If you leave this field empty, the first two letters of the Instance display name are used.
• Imagotype logo URL: Link to the imagotype to be used in the Playboard. The link must be a public absolute path. The image can be SVG, PNG, or JPG.

Design tips

Image format
Use SVG format for better rendering.

Image size
The image occupies the available space depending on the location where it is used, usually according to maximum height and/or maximum width of the container.
For example, in the Instance landing page, a 650 x 426px logo is rendered as approximately 188 x 125px, occupying the maximum height available in the container and calculating the width according to the image's aspect ratio.

Isotypes as responsive logos
If your customer’s branding does not have a specific isotype and uses a wordmark or a combination mark only, use a fragment of that wordmark (i.e. the first letter) to represent the brand rather than the standard logo.

Linking the catalog

This section connects the product catalog with the Playboard. It determines the product fields to use with the different features in the Playboard. It also maps the fields used for product results from the Search microservice so they can be used in Query Ranking.

Product catalog fields can be determined as Rankable, which allows the product catalog field to be used in Query Ranking. Merchandisers can use this attribute to boost or bury a range of products or a specific product by selecting the attribute and entering a value. For example, if you want to use color as an attribute to boost or bury product results using the Query Ranking tool, you must include the Color field ID in this section and set it as rankable.

To configure the product catalog fields:

1. Enter a valid ID in Product catalog field.

   note

   The IDs are case-sensitive. The Playboard ignores any unrecognized product catalog field IDs.

2. If you want to display a descriptive name rather than the product catalog field ID, enter a value in the Name field.
3. Select the field type by turning on or off the rankable toggle.
4. Click the + icon to add the field. The field is displayed as a row below the Product catalog fields section.

You also need to determine the product result mapping to retrieve the product ID, product name, and product image that are used to display the results in the Playboard. These fields are determined as:

• Result ID: Field in the product catalog where the product ID is found.
• Result name: Field in the product catalog where the product name is found.
• Result image URL: Field in the product catalog where the product image URL is found.

note

All field names are case-sensitive. The Playboard ignores any unrecognized product catalog fields. The field is not configured and no action is taken.

interact

Search for a configuration by its ID using the search bar available on top of the list.

Granting Playboard permissions

This section lets you choose the features you want to make visible in the Playboard.

The features are grouped into three domains:

• Search: Determines features related to the search experience.
• Discovery: Determines features related to the navigation experience.
• Global: Determines features that apply to both search and navigation experiences in terms of Playboard administration.

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You may need to configure some Playboard features in the Features section.

Search features

These features are related to the search experience and are displayed in the order given here:

• Insights: You can turn on the Overall and Queries analytics features, which provide data on the evolution in search in terms of users, queries, and sessions, visualizing the KPIs you choose to turn on in the Playboard. Turn on the rest of the features, which relate to the data visualizations in Insights according to the customer’s needs. Some of the data visualizations use the metrics included as part of Analytics.

  • Overall: Understand search evolution with metrics such as clicks, CTR, add to cart, and checkout.
  • Queries: View metrics for all queries, queries with results, and queries with no results.
  • Now: Explore the queries shoppers used and performance in terms of results and clicks.
  • Categories: Explore success metrics across product categories and visualize queries by categories to maximize performance.
  • Origins: Understand whether shoppers used organic searches, predictive, or refinement features.
  • Terms: Detect popular terms used in search queries to offer relevant suggestions.
  • Semantics: Analyze how Semantics reduces the no or low results for a query and increases shoppers interactions.

• Play: You can enable multiple features to help merchandisers maximize findability and discoverability in the commerce store.

  • Equalize: Configure the product attribute weighting used in ranking the results.
  • Synonymize: Set up alternative terms for search queries.
  • Blacklist: Hide specific terms as search suggestions.
  • Promotion: Highlight specific products on the search engine results page (SERP). If you turn on this feature, you need to determine the type of promotion you want to use in the Features section.
  • Redirection: Send shoppers directly to specific URLs from the search box.
  • Query Ranking: Change product ranking on the SERP based on products and attributes. If you turn on this feature, you need to determine the pivot fields to be used in the Features section to restrict the impact of the tooling.
  • Related tags: Create and configure related tags.
  • Next queries: Create and configure next queries.
  • Explain: Understand how products are ranked organically and view any configurations that may be affecting positioning.

Discovery features

These features are related to the navigation experience and are displayed as follows:

• Navigation Metrics: You can turn on Navigation Metrics to access data on the evolution in browsing regarding product categories.
• Configuration: You can enable multiple configuration features to help merchandisers maximize discoverability in the commerce store. You can change facet names and boost and bury products and product attributes in the navigation experience.

Global features

• Activity stream: Monitor all the changes performed in the Playboard.

Setting up filters

This section allows you to set up the filters that merchandisers and analysts use when visualizing Insights or using the Play tooling in the Playboard.

There are two types of filters that you can set up:

• Languages: Languages to be used as filters in the Playboard. The values selected here must match the product catalog languages.
• Custom filter fields: Additional filters that you may set up in the implementation of the Tagging and Search microservices. These filters are then used to narrow the data displayed in the Playboard. The filters set up in the Playboard should match those used in the Tagging and Search microservices. However, depending on your customer’s specific use case, the filters for the Search microservice may be different. You need to make sure the Tagging ID in this section matches that entered in the Name field in the Tagging section and ID contains the filter entered in the Search feature configuration. For example, Tagging ID must be store, catalog, scope, or section; however, the corresponding ID used in Search for section may be division. If this is the case, you need to specify the IDs for Search and Tagging in the Playboard section.
• Select multiple preview filters: Toggle to select, when activated, multiple filter values in product result lists' previews of Explain, Equalize, Query Ranking, and Browse configurations.

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You must define at least one language as a filter. For example, set Filter ID as lang and add EN as a language in the ID field for Filter value.

Adding a custom filter

To configure a filter, you need to add all the filter values for the filter and then add the filter itself:

1. In the Filter value, enter the ID and Tagging ID and click +.
   The ID and Name is added as a row below the Filter value section.
   If the definition of the filters is different in the Search microservice, then enter the filter value ID for search in the ID field and the filter value ID for tagging in the Tagging ID field. If the filters are the same for both tagging and search, then enter the ID in the ID field.

2. In the Custom Filter Fields, enter the ID and Tagging ID (if different from the ID used for Index & Search).
   If the definition of the filters is different in the Search microservice, then enter the filter ID for search in the ID field and the filter ID for tagging in the Tagging ID field. If the filter IDs are the same for both tagging and search, then enter the ID in the ID field.

   note

   The IDs are case-sensitive. The Playboard ignores any unrecognized field IDs. The field is not configured and no action is taken.

3. If you want to set a default value that is used where no value is provided in the search request, enter the value in Default value ID.

4. You can define in which group of tools of the Playboard your filters are displayed by selecting a value in Sections.

5. Once you have added all the values for the filter, click + beside the Filter section.
   The filter and filter values are shown as a row below the Custom filter fields section.

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Existing filters and values cannot be edited. To change a filter value, click the X icon beside the value or filter to remove the incorrect value and add the new value.

coding tip

Use the Name field in this form to change the labels for the filter and filter value in the Playboard. For example, you enter scope in the ID field, but you display this information as “Device” in the Playboard by entering Device in the Name field.

Choosing KPIs

You can choose which KPIs to turn on globally for the instance and determine which metrics to display in the reports.

The metrics you can make visible or hide individually are:

• Query: Metric to show the number of search requests performed.
• No result: Metric to show the number of queries that failed to provide results.
• Click: Metric to show the number of click actions on a product.
• Findability: Metric to show the number of clicks on the first page of SERP versus total queries.
• Add-to-cart: Metric to show the number of products added to the cart from a search result.
• Checkout: Metric to show the number of products purchased that were added to cart from a search result.
• Session: Metric to show the number of grouped shopper interactions performed within a given time frame.

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By default, all metrics are shown in the Playboard.

If you choose to hide a specific metric, the metric is no longer shown in the Analytics screens and in the Insights data visualizations in the Empathy Platform Playboard. However, the data is still collected to calculate the metrics. You can choose to turn on the metric again at any stage. The analytics shown will reflect the current situation.

Setting up Playboard features

Several of the Playboard features you can turn on in the Permissions section require additional configuration.

You set up the following Search and Discovery features as follows:

Search features

• Promotion: You need to determine the type of promotion you want to use. You can choose to use only promoted results, only promotion banners, or both promoted results and banners.

• Query ranking: For Query Ranking, you need to determine the pivot fields to be used to restrict the impact of the tooling. In this case, the pivot fields must match a field in the product catalog and must be included as filters in the Tagging section.
  
  Also, you need to select the way you want to use the Query Ranking management tool, as you can work with the usual one or have the new Query Ranking interface. Turn the toggle switch icon on or off to select your preferred interface.

• Experience Controls: For related tags and next queries, you can determine the pivot fields to be used while configuring your curated suggestions. In this case, the pivot fields must match a field in the product catalog and must be included as filters in the Tagging section.

Discovery features

• Configuration: For the navigation experience, you need to determine the pivot fields and attributes to be used with the tool.
  • Pivot fields: Product catalog field to use to segment the data.
  • Attributes: Product catalog field to use as an attribute. Merchandisers can use the fields indicated here to boost or bury the products within the navigation experience.

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  The ID field must match the product catalog field ID exactly. You can choose a different display name in the Name field.

Enabling the Play microservice

Once you have entered all required configuration for the Playboard and saved the form, you need to enable the Play microservice. To do this, click the Enabled toggle switch located at the bottom of the screen.