Manage query pipeline conditions

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Developer System Administrator

A query pipeline condition determines when a particular query pipeline or an associated component applies to a query. conditions are essential for ensuring that the correct pipelines and components are applied based on specific criteria. This ensures optimal search relevance.

Conditions page | Coveo Platform

Most pipelines and their components should be associated with a condition to obtain more targeted results. Without a condition, a pipeline or component would apply globally to all queries routed to that pipeline.

Example

Your company, Barca Sports, has a self-service support portal for equipment assembly and troubleshooting. You previously added a thesaurus rule to handle common misspellings of product names. You notice in your Coveo Analytics report that a recurring theme is for users to query googles instead of goggles when searching for ski goggles on their mobile devices. To ensure that this particular thesaurus rule is applied to users on mobile devices, you create a condition based on the Device object with the value mobile.

Condition example on rule list page | Coveo Platform

Manage conditions

You can create, edit, and delete query pipeline conditions, as well as add descriptions to help you manage them.

Notes

  • A condition can be used by multiple pipelines and components. However, each query pipeline, rule, and ML model association can only be associated with a single condition.

  • New conditions can be created on different areas of the Coveo Administration Console, while modifying or deleting existing conditions are done on the Conditions page.

Create a condition

  1. Access the Add a condition panel by doing one of the following:

  2. Click the first dropdown menu, and then select on which object the condition is based.

  3. Click the second dropdown menu, and then select an operator to apply between the selected object and the value.

  4. Click the third dropdown menu (if available), and then provide values to filter on by doing one of the following:

    • Select one or more of the available values.

    • Type in a new value, and then select Enter.

  5. (Optional) Click tabler-circle-plus on the right side of the panel to add another condition:

    1. In the dropdown menu that appears after the first condition, select the AND or the OR operator to specify how this second condition will be linked to the first one.

    2. Repeat the procedure to define the second condition.

  6. Click Add condition.

Edit a condition

Important

Modifying a condition immediately affects all pipeline rules or models that use the condition.

  1. On the Conditions (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, select the checkbox next to the condition that you want to edit, and then in the Action bar, click Edit.

  2. In the Edit a condition panel, add, modify, or delete condition elements as needed.

  3. Click Save.

Set a condition description

  1. On the Conditions (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, select the checkbox next to the condition to which you want to add a description, and then click Set description in the More menu.

  2. In the Set Description panel, enter any information that will help you manage the condition in the future.

  3. Click Save. The entered text appears in the Description column.

Edit a condition with code

You can edit a condition that respects the query pipeline language (QPL) syntax.

  1. On the Conditions (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, select the checkbox next to the condition that you want to edit, and then in the Action bar, click Edit code.

  2. In the Edit a condition with code panel that appears, enter the condition using QPL syntax.

  3. Click Save.

Note

The object on which the condition is based appears differently in the Add/Edit a Condition panel dropdown menu than it does as a QPL object on the code editor.

Add/Edit a condition panel:

Add a condition | Coveo

Edit a condition with code panel:

Edit a condition with code | Coveo

Delete a condition

Important

Deleting a condition removes the condition from all query pipelines, rules, and models using that condition.

  1. On the Conditions (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, select the checkbox next to the condition that you want to delete, and then in the Action bar, click Delete.

  2. On the Delete this condition? message that appears, click Delete again.

Reference

The following sections describe the available condition objects and operators that you can use when creating query pipeline conditions.

Objects

The Original objects (that is, Original Advanced Query, Original Constant Query, Original Disjunction Query, Original Large Query, and Original Query) use the expression as it was sent prior to being processed by a query pipeline. The Original objects also have regular counterparts, and both option types can be selected in the object dropdown menu of the Add a condition panel.

Example

A user searches dashcam on your support page. You have a thesaurus rule that replaces dashcam with dash cam.

  • If the condition to your rule is Original Query is dash cam, it won’t be met since the original user query was dashcam.

  • If the condition to your rule is Query is dash cam, the condition will be met since the query is processed by the thesaurus rule before being evaluated against the condition.

Advanced Query/Original Advanced Query

Hidden expression used to narrow the search results made by the user.[1]

Example

When the user selects Word Document in a Type facet, the advanced query can be @filetype==doc.

The Advanced Query/Original Advanced Query object is used to create conditions based on a Facet.

To create a condition based on a DynamicFacet, you must use the Filter query from facets object.

Browser

The type of browser on which the search interface runs, such as chrome, firefox, ie, or safari.

Constant Query/Original Constant Query

Hidden expression used to narrow the search results selected by the user.[1]

Example

When the user selects the Support Cases search interface tab, the constant query is (@objecttype==('CaseComment','Case')).

Context

One or more parameters passed by the search interface in a JSON key/value pair format.

Your search interface must pass custom context information with the query.

Click the Context key dropdown menu, and then select a suggestion, or manually enter the desired context key and select Enter or click tabler-circle-plus.

Important

The keys used in the Context object are case sensitive.
Example

Your custom context is used to differentiate users by their role relative to your products. Therefore, you defined your key as userRole and the possible values as end-user, administrator, or developer.

You can define a condition using this key, and one or more of these values.

Device

The type of device on which the search interface runs, such as desktop, mobile, phone, or tablet.

Disjunction Query/Original Disjunction Query

Hidden expression applied with a logical OR operator with other expressions and used to expand the search results, such as, in rare cases, where some search results that don’t match the other expressions must be injected.[1]

Filter Query From Facets

Hidden expression used to narrow the search results made by the user.

Examples

  • You want to apply a rule when the @sourcename facet field has the value Barca selected; therefore, you create a condition with the following expression:

    $facetsFilter is "@sourcename==(Barca)"

  • You want apply a rule when the @sourcename facet field has the value Jira and the @filetype facet field has the value Jiraissue selected; therefore, you combine the two conditions with the following expression:

    $facetsFilter is "@sourcename==(Jira) @filetype==(Jiraissue)"

The Filter query from facets object is used to create conditions based on a DynamicFacet.

To create a condition based on a Facet, you must use the link Advanced Query/Original Advanced Query object.

Groups

When the user performing the query is authenticated through the REST Search API, the name of the user groups, such as the domain\group form for a Windows user.

Identity

When the user performing the query is authenticated through the REST Search API, the name of the user, such as in the domain\name form for a Windows user.

Language

The language part of the locale query parameter (see Locale).

Example

When the locale query parameter is en-US, the language is en.

Large Query/Original Large Query

Contextual text part of the query which typically contains a case description, a long textual query, or any other form of text that can help refine a query.[1]

Locale

The value of the locale query parameter passed by the search interface, such as the one configured in the browser such as en-US or fr-CA.

Operating System

The operating system of the device on which the search interface runs, such as android, blackberry, ios, osx, or windows.

Query/Original Query

What the end user searches for such as the keywords entered in the search box.[1]

Query Time UTC

The UTC time at which the query was made.

Note

For this object only, your operator options at next step are Is between and Is not between, and you must enter a date range.
Example

On your ecommerce website, you want to show certain products at the top of the search results page during your Boxing Day sale. So, you create a pipeline or pipeline rule with the following condition: Query Time UTC is between Dec 25, 2019 12:00 AM and Dec 27, 2019 11:59 PM.

Recommendation

The identifier of the recommendation interface from which the query originates.

Note

You can create a condition to ensure that queries originating from a specific recommendation interface are routed to a query pipeline that contains the Content Recommendation (CR) model you want to use to output recommendations for that interface.
Example

On your ecommerce website, you have a side-panel that lists your top selling products that’s identified as RecommendedProducts.

Referrer

The third level of origin of the query, typically the URL of the page that linked to the search interface from which the query originates (see Origin 3 (Referrer)).

Search Hub

The search interface from which the query was made.

Tab

The search interface tab from which the query was made.

Operators

Important

Always use positive operators (for example, is, contains, or matches) when creating a condition that aims at routing the queries originating from a specific search interface to a given query pipeline.

Is/Is not

Whether the condition object on which the condition is based is exactly the value to filter.

The Is/Is not operators are:

  • Case insensitive

  • Interpreting the value to filter on as a string.

Examples

  • Search hub is Customer Service Portal

  • Device is not iPhone

Contains/Doesn’t contain

Whether the condition object on which the condition is based contains the value to filter.

The Contains/Doesn’t contain operators are:

  • Case insensitive

  • Interpreting the value to filter on as a string.

Examples

  • Search hub contains Service

  • Device doesn’t contain iPhone

Matches/Doesn’t match

Whether the condition object on which the condition is based matches the regular expression (regex) to filter.

The Matches/Doesn’t match operators:

  • Are case sensitive.

  • Interpret the value to filter on as a regex.

  • Evaluate to true only if the entire value of the condition object matches the regex.

Examples

  • Query matches ^(?i)how do i.*$: Checks if the query starts with how do i, case-insensitive.

  • Device doesn’t match ^.*Mac.*$: Checks if the device string doesn’t contain the substring Mac.

Notes

  • If you’re trying to match a specific word or pattern within a larger string, the regex needs to account for the entire string, not just the part you’re interested in.

  • Use the contains operator instead of matches to check whether the pattern appears anywhere within the string, rather than requiring the entire string to match the pattern.

Is empty/Is not empty

Whether the condition object on which the condition is based is empty.

  • The Is empty operator is evaluated to true when the object (for example, Context) is:

    • An empty string (for example, "")

    • An empty array (for example, [])

  • The Is not empty operator is evaluated to true when the object (for example, Context) is:

    • null

    • undefined

    • A non-empty string (for example, " ", "foo", 123)

    • A non-empty array (for example, ["foo"], [" ", "foo"])

Examples

  • Context [UserRole] is empty

  • Context [UserRole] is not empty

See Is empty/Is not empty VS Is populated/Is not populated for further information about the differences between the operators.

Is populated/Is not populated

Whether the condition object on which the condition is based is populated.

  • The Is populated operator is evaluated to true when the object (for example, Context) is:

    • A populated string (for example,"foo", 123 )

    • A populated array (for example, ["123", “foo"])

  • The Is not populated operator is evaluated to true when the object (for example, Context) is:

    • null

    • undefined

    • A non-populated string (for example, "“,” ")

    • A non-populated array (for example, [],["", " "] )

Examples

  • Context [UserRole] is populated

  • Context [UserRole] is not populated

See Is empty/Is not empty VS Is populated/Is not populated for further information about the differences between the operators.

Is between/Is not between

The Query Time UTC object time frame.

The Is between / Is not between operators are available only when selecting the Query Time UTC object.

Example

Query Time UTC Is between Oct 30, 2019, 0:00 to Oct 31, 2019, 0:00

Is empty/Is not empty VS Is populated/Is not populated

The Is empty/Is not empty and Is populated/Is not populated operators may look similar, but they each have their own purpose.

The following table indicates how a condition object is evaluated according to the chosen operator (Is populated,Is not populated, Is empty, and Is not empty).

Object state

Operators

Is populated

Is not populated

Is empty

Is not empty

undefined

false

true

false

true

null

false

true

false

true

true

true

false

false

true

false

true

false

false

true

0

true

false

false

true

1

true

false

false

true

[]

false

true

true

false

["", ""]

false

true

false

true

[" ", " "]

false

true

false

true

{}

false

true

true

false

““

false

true

true

false

“ “

false

true

false

true

"foo"

true

false

false

true

Required privileges

The following table indicates the required privileges for members to view or edit elements of the Conditions (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page and associated panels (see Manage privileges and Privilege reference). This includes the ability to manage query pipeline conditions.

Note

Members with the privilege to view query pipelines (that is, the View all or the Custom access level on the Query Pipelines domain) can review the conditions in read-only mode (see Manage privileges and Query pipelines domain).
Action Service - Domain Required access level

View pipeline conditions

Search - Query pipelines
Organization - Organization

View

Edit pipeline conditions

Analytics - Analytics data
Analytics - Dimensions
Organization - Organization

View

Search - Query pipelines

Edit
1. To understand the difference between the Original and non-original condition objects, see the "Objects" reference documentation.