Discover the Empathy Platform Playboard
Configure the search and discovery experience with no code controls
The Empathy Platform Playboard is the set of tools to adapt, understand, and optimize your search and discovery experience. It allows merchandisers to play with the commerce search and discovery experience and adapt it to their business needs, reducing the distance between shoppers and the catalogue.
Playboard layout - (A) Instance menu, (B) Playboard menu, (C) My Highlights, and (D) Profile menu.
The Playboard layout has four main sections:
Instance menu
Some organizations may have several product catalogues. Each catalogue is represented by an instance in the Playboard. You can have as many instances as catalogues 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 tools and features (B). The menu is divided by two tabs: Search and Discovery. Each tab has its own set of tools. 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 have permissions to perform certain actions. See Notes on Playboard permissions to learn more.
Search features
All the analytics, insights, and tools related to search are displayed together in the Search tab of the Playboard menu. They are grouped by type:
Analytics: Provides useful metrics and KPIs to view users, queries, and sessions in your search. Analytics includes the Overall and Queries reports, accessible via the Insights section from the Playboard menu.
Insights: Offers powerful and inspiring data visualizations for you to understand search better and provides an upper-hand on trends to help you make informed decisions. The Insights landing page includes data visualizations such as Now, Categories, Origins, and Terms.
- 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.
Discovery features
Navigation is another of the main aspects of your commerce store. Use the Discovery tab to monitor and fine-tune the navigation experience in your store.
- Overall: Provides 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.
- Play: 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).
Activity stream
The Activity stream tool is common for both the search features and the discovery features, so it's always displayed. It shows all the actions performed in the Playboard by users in your organization. These actions include changes made using the Search and Navigation tools, importing new catalogues, and modifications to the instance configuration.
My Highlights
My Highlights (C) 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 search and take action according to your business strategies.
In all the Playboard screens, on the top left corner next to the Playboard menu (C), you can see a sparkle button that gives you direct access to the My Highlights homepage dashboard.
Moreover, you find breadcrumbs to guide you throughout your journey in the Empathy Platform Playboard. Like so, you navigate back and forth easily, knowing where you are at any time.
Profile menu
Click the profile icon to display the menu options available (D):
- 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.
Notes on Playboard permissions
Depending on the features you have enabled in your Empathy Platform implementation, the Playboard displays different features. Access to these features is determined at instance and feature level. In other words, for each instance, access to each feature is determined separately.
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.