Discover the Empathy Platform Playboard
Configure the search and discovery experiences with no code controls
The Empathy Platform Playboard is the set of tools that allow merchandisers to understand, adapt, and optimize their commerce store performance. It allows you to play with your search and discovery experiences to adjust them to your business needs, reducing the distance between shoppers and the catalog.
Playboard layout - (A) Instance menu, (B) Playboard menu, (C) Profile menu, and (D) My Highlights.
The Playboard layout has four main sections:
Instance menu
Some organizations may have several product catalogs. Each catalog is represented by an instance in the Playboard. You can have as many instances as catalogs you have access to. Click your logo, your instance name, or the arrow next to them to display the instance menu (A). These options are available from here:
Instance management: Lets you configure and set up your instance, including all microservices.
warning
This tool is available for Empathy Partners only. Check with your Empathy Alliance representative if you think you should be able to access this tool.
Go to all instances: Redirects you to all your organization's instances so that you can select the one you want to work with.
Playboard menu
The left-side menu serves as the entry point for all of the Playboard’s features and tools (B). Use the left-right arrow icon on the top of the menu to collapse or expand it.
note
According to your Playboard's role, you may have read or write access to different features and tools and have permissions to perform certain actions. See Notes on Playboard permissions to learn more.
Features
All the analytics, insights, and tools related to search and discovery experiences are displayed together in the Playboard menu. They are grouped by type:
- Insights: Provides useful metrics and KPIs to view users, queries, and sessions in your search thanks to the Overall and Queries search analytics reports. Insights also offers powerful and inspiring data visualizations for you to understand search experiences better and provides an upper-hand on trends to help you make informed decisions. The search data visualizations that Insights includes are Now, Categories, Origins, Terms, and Semantics. In terms of discovery data analytics, Insights includes the Navigation Metrics discovery analytics report with useful metrics and KPIs to understand the performance of your commerce navigation, for example, which are the most clicked sections of the menu, most used filters, etc.
Explain: Gives detailed information on each product’s score and shows how shoppers see the results on the search engine results page (SERP), so you can take the necessary actions in case you need to alter how search products are ranked.
Browse: Includes the Configuration tool, which you can use to modify facet names and boost and bury products and product attributes on the product listing page (PLP) to fine-tune the navigation experience.
Facets: Allows you to configure by categories, characteristics, attributes, or attribute values (price, brand, fabric, etc.) how your catalog products are grouped in your commerce store.
Activity stream
The Activity stream tool shows all the actions performed in the Playboard by users in your organization. These actions include changes made using the search and discovery features and tools, importing new catalogs, and modifying the instance configuration.
Profile menu
Click the profile icon to display the menu options available (C):
- Account: Allows you to edit your user account for the Playboard. Set up your first name, last name, and password.
- Playboard docs: Redirects you to the Empathy Platform Playboard topics in the documentation portal to get further information.
- Log out: Closes your user session in the Playboard.
My Highlights
My Highlights (D) is the homepage for the Empathy Platform Playboard. This dashboard provides a customized and actionable experience to make the most of your commerce search and discovery. There are different customizable widgets to check what's happening in your commerce store and take action according to your business strategies.
In all the Playboard screens, a sparkle button is in the top left corner next to the Instance menu (A), which gives you direct access to the My Highlights homepage dashboard.
Moreover, you find breadcrumbs to guide you throughout your journey on the Empathy Platform Playboard. Thus, you navigate back and forth easily, knowing where you are at any time.
Notes on Playboard permissions
Depending on the features you have enabled in your Empathy Platform implementation, the Playboard displays different ones. Access to these features is determined at instance and feature level. In other words, access to each feature is determined separately for each instance.
Your organization decides the roles and permissions assigned to each user. All Playboard implementations have an admin role that provides access to all features. However, organizations may decide to create additional user roles as required and assign feature permissions to that role accordingly. There are three permission levels that can be assigned for each feature:
- Write: you can view and perform actions.
- Read: you can view the screen, but cannot perform any actions.
- No access: you cannot access or view the screen.
For example, if you are a merchandiser, you may have write permissions for a number of features like Synonymize and Related Tags, but no access to the Insights data visualizations. If you are an analyst, you may have full access to features that provide data such as Analytics, Insights, and Explain, but no access to Play tools.
Important
The Empathy Platform Playboard may look different according to the permissions assigned to your role.