Item Processing Pipelines

When you rebuild or refresh your Coveo for Sitecore indexes using the Sitecore UI or the Coveo Command Center, a Sitecore item goes through series of processes, or pipelines. Along this route, Coveo for Sitecore processes the item by adding the missing Coveo fields (for example, the BinaryData field to hold the item body) and metadata required the item needs to be complete. At the end of these processes, the item is sent to Coveo where it’s finally converted to the Coveo index item format and stored.

For the indexing process within Sitecore, Coveo supplies you with two item processing Coveo for Sitecore pipelines (the <coveoItemProcessingPipeline> and <coveoPostItemProcessingPipeline> pipelines), which you can leverage to modify Sitecore items, respectively, before and after they’re processed by Coveo for Sitecore. Coveo for Sitecore pipelines are defined as /configuration/sitecore/pipelines element children in Coveo .config files. In turn, these Coveo pipeline elements contain <processor> elements which reference a class in a Coveo DLL.

Among all pipelines included in Coveo for Sitecore, item processing pipelines are among the most commonly customized ones. You can find their definitions in the /configuration/sitecore/pipelines section of the Coveo.SearchProvider.config file. To add your own processor, you should therefore add your changes to the Coveo.SearchProvider.Custom.config file.