Create and Manage a Product Recommendations Model

Coveo Machine Learning (Coveo ML) Product Recommendations (PR) models suggest to end users products that suit their profile, context, and buying behaviors. The results that are returned by the Coveo ML PR service can be integrated in a Coveo for Commerce search interface.

To take advantage of Coveo ML PR, members with the required privileges must first create their PR models.

Prerequisites

Coveo Machine Learning (Coveo ML) Product Recommendations (PR) models use usage analytics (UA) events to relevantly target and suggest products to your customers.

Before creating your PR model, make sure that the commerce interfaces in which you want to implement the models properly collect commerce usage analytics events.

If there are less than 100 events available for your PR model, the model is empty and doesn’t provide recommendations. With 100 events or more, your model starts to learn and improve.

Create a PR Model

  1. On the Models page, in the upper-right corner, click Add Model to open the Add a Machine Learning Model panel.

  2. Under Name, enter a meaningful display name for the model.

  3. Under Model type, select Product Recommendations, and then click Next.

  4. (Optional) In the Learning Interval section, change the default Frequency and Data period values, and then click Next.

  5. (Optional) In the Learn From section, add filters to refine the data that the model uses to make its recommendations.

  6. Click Add Model.

  7. On the Models page, under the Status column, in the model row, the value is most probably Inactive.

    The model value will change to Active when the model creation is complete (typically within 30 minutes, depending on the amount of usage analytics data to process). The model can only return recommendations when its status is Active.

    For more information on Coveo ML model statuses, see the Status column reference.

  8. (Optional) If you want to specify an advanced configuration for your model, you can use the Advanced tab of the model configuration. See Machine Learning Advanced Configuration for further details.

  9. Once the model is Active, you must associate the model with a pipeline to take advantage of the model in a search interface.

    Make sure to follow the model association leading practices before associating your model with your production query pipeline.

Edit a PR Model

  1. On the Models page, click the model you want to edit, and then in the Action bar, click Edit.

  2. On the subpage that opens, select the Configuration tab.

  3. Under Name, you can optionally edit the model’s display name.

  4. (Optional) In the Learning Interval section, change the default Frequency and Data period values.

  5. (Optional) In the Learn From section, add filters to refine the data that the model uses to make its recommendations.

  6. Click Save.

  7. On the Models page, under the Status column, in the model row, the value is most probably Updating.

    The model value will change to Active when the model edition is complete (typically within 30 minutes, depending on the amount of usage analytics data to process). The model can only return recommendations when its status is Active.

    For more information on Coveo ML model statuses, see the Status column reference.

  8. Once the model is Active, you must associate the model with a pipeline to take advantage of the model in a search interface.

    Make sure to follow the model association leading practices before associating your model with your production query pipeline.

Create a PR Model With JSON

Advanced users who are members of the Administrators and Relevance Managers built-in groups may want to create a model using a JSON configuration.

  1. Access the Models page.

  2. On the right-hand side of the page, click menu-button, and then select Add model with JSON.

  3. In the Add a Model With JSON panel that appears, modify the model placeholder configuration:

    {
    "engineId": "ecommerce",
    "modelName": "<MODEL_NAME>",
    "modelDisplayName": "<MODEL_DISPLAY_NAME>",
    "exportPeriod": "<EXPORT_PERIOD>",
    "intervalTime": <INTERVAL_TIME>,
    "intervalUnit": "<INTERVAL_UNIT>"
}

    Where:

    • modelName (string, required) is the name of the model, which must be unique in your Coveo organization.

    • modelDisplayName (string) is the name of the model appearing on the Models page.

    • exportPeriod (ISO-8601 string, required) is the period defining the age of the usage analytics data used to build the model. Must be in the ISO8601 period format (e.g., PyYmMwWdDThHmMsS).

      Unless an exportOffset is specified, the exportPeriod uses the moment when the model was generated as a base.

    • intervalTime (integer, required) is the number of intervalUnit (e.g., DAY, WEEK, or MONTH) between each update of the model. Must be between 1 and 30 inclusively.

    • intervalUnit (string enum, required) is the duration unit of the interval between each update of the model. See intervalTime. Accepted values are: DAY, WEEK, and MONTH.

  4. Click Add Model.

    The model now appears on the Models page.

  • The default configuration contains all the required parameters with placeholder values.

  • You can add other custom model parameters.

  • When using an existing configuration as a starting point, make sure to change the modelDisplayName as it must be unique in a Coveo organization.

Edit a PR Model JSON Configuration

  1. Access the Models page.

  2. Click the desired model.

  3. In the Action bar, click More, and then select Edit JSON.

  4. In the Edit a Model JSON Configuration panel that appears, modify the existing model configuration:

    {
  "modelDisplayName": "<MODEL_DISPLAY_NAME>",
  "exportPeriod": "<EXPORT_PERIOD>",
  "intervalTime": <INTERVAL_TIME>,
  "intervalUnit": "<INTERVAL_UNIT>",
  "commandLineParameters": [<ADVANCED_ML_PARAMETERS>],
  "commonFilter": "<COMMON_FILTER>",
  "customEventFilter": "<CUSTOM_EVENT_FILTER>",
  "exportOffset": "<EXPORT_OFF_SET>",
  "searchEventFilter": "<SEARCH_EVENT_FILTER>",
  "viewEventFilter": "<VIEW_EVENT_FILTER>"
}

    Where:

    • modelDisplayName (string) is the name of the model appearing on the Models page.

    • exportPeriod (ISO-8601 string, required) is the period defining the age of the usage analytics data used to build the model. Must be in the ISO8601 period format (i.e., PyYmMwWdDThHmMsS).

      Unless an exportOffset is specified, the exportPeriod uses the moment when the model was generated as a base.

    • intervalTime (integer, required) is the number of intervalUnit (i.e., DAY, WEEK, or MONTH) between each update of the model. Must be between 1 and 30 inclusively.

    • intervalUnit (string enum, required) is the duration unit of the interval between each update of the model. See intervalTime. Accepted values are: DAY, WEEK, and MONTH.

    • commandLineParameters (array of string) are additional parameters used to tailor the model to your use case (see Custom Model Parameters).

    • commonFilter (string) is the filter to apply to the common event dimensions (shared by all event types) in the export. Multiple filter parameters are joined with the AND operator.

    • customEventFilter (string) is the filter to apply to the custom event dimensions in the export. Multiple filter parameters are joined with the AND operator.

    • exportOffset (ISO-8601 string) is the offset of the usage analytics data used to build the model. Must be in the ISO8601 period format (i.e., PyYmMwWdDThHmMsS). The default value is PT0S, meaning that all events are considered when building a model (the exportPeriod is based on the moment the model was generated).

      EXAMPLE

      You want to ignore events that occur on the current day, so you set the exportOffset value to P1D.

    • searchEventFilter (string) is the filter to apply to the click and search event dimensions in the export. Multiple filter parameters are joined with the AND operator.

    • viewEventFilter (string) is the filter to apply to the view event dimensions (shared by all event types) in the export. Multiple filter parameters are joined with the AND operator.

  5. Click Save to apply your changes.

Delete a PR Model

You must dissociate a model from all its associated query pipelines before deleting it. Models aren’t automatically dissociated from pipelines when they’re deleted.

  1. On the Models page, click the ML model that you want to delete.

  2. In the Action bar, click More, and then click Delete.

  3. In the Delete a Model panel that appears, click Delete model.

Review Active Model Information

On the Models page, click the desired model (must be Active), and then in the Action bar, click Open (see Reviewing Coveo Machine Learning Model Information).

Reference

"Status" Column

On the Models page of the Administration Console, the Status column indicates the current state of your Coveo ML models.

When inspecting the Status column, a given model is either in the Active or Inactive state. Additional information can be displayed depending on the model’s current state.

status column

The following table lists the possible model statuses, their definitions, and their status colors as shown in the Administration Console:

Status Definition Status Color
Active The model is active and available.
Inactive The model isn’t available.
Update in queue Waiting to process a scheduled update or configuration change.
Updating The model is being rebuilt based on a new configuration.
Waiting The model is in the building queue.
Building The model is currently being processed.
Degraded The model is active, but has some limitations. Additional information is available in the Error section of a model (see Review Coveo Machine Learning Model Information).
Failed The model couldn’t be built with the requested configuration. Additional information is available in the Error section of a model (see Review Coveo Machine Learning Model Information). See Edit a PR Model for information on how to edit a model configuration.
Update failed The model couldn’t be updated with the requested configuration.
Unknown An error prevented the model from being built successfully.

“Learning Interval” Section

In this section, you can modify the following:

  • Frequency: The rate at which the model is retrained.

  • Data period: The usage analytics data time interval on which the model will be based.

  • The more visits you have on your page, the higher the Frequency should be.

  • The more hubs, interfaces, and languages you have, the longer the Data period should be.

  • Consider selecting a longer Data period when your search interface serves a small number of queries, and you want to improve the relevancy of recommendations by using a larger dataset.

  • Consider selecting a shorter Data period when your search hub serves many queries, and you want the recommendations to be more responsive to trends in user behavior.

For more information on Coveo ML data learning behavior, see Training and Retraining.

“Learn From” Section

The Learn From section allows you to refine the data that the model uses to make its recommendations. By narrowing down the set of data that a model uses, you can better customize relevancy for specific user groups and use cases. You can apply filters on all events, or on every event that belongs to a specific category (i.e., search, click, view, or custom events).

EXAMPLE

You want your PR model to return recommendations that pertain to a specific user group, so you add a data filter to ensure that only a specific set of analytics are used by the model for training purposes.

To add a filter:

  1. Click Add-Filter.

  2. In the Select a dimension drop-down menu, select the dimension on which you want to base the learning of the model.

  3. In the Select an operator drop-down menu, select the appropriate operator.

  4. In the Select value(s) drop-down menu, add, type, or select the appropriate value.

  5. Click Add Filter.

Required Privileges

By default, members of the Administrators and Relevance Managers built-in groups can view and edit elements of the Models page.

The following table indicates the privileges required to use elements of the Models page and associated panels (see Manage Privileges and Privilege Reference).

Action Service - Domain Required access level

View models

Machine Learning - Models

Search - Query pipelines

View

Edit models

Machine Learning - Models

Edit

Search - Query pipelines

View
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