Get started with Coveo AI Search & Discovery in Shopify

This is for:

System Administrator Developer

You can use the Coveo AI Search & Discovery application to add a Coveo-powered search interface to your Shopify storefront. By adding Coveo’s powerful, multi-layered AI search to your store, you can enhance personalized shopper journeys, improve conversion rates, and increase revenue per visit.

The setup process for Coveo AI Search & Discovery is mostly documented within the application, and it includes the following steps:

This article provides additional information about these steps, where necessary, or links to relevant articles.

Prerequisites

  1. To index your Shopify products, you need a Coveo organization.

    If you’ve never used the Coveo Platform before, log in now.

    Notes

    • You can’t use the Coveo AI Search & Discovery application with a trial Coveo organization.

    • Contact your sales representative to enable Coveo for Commerce features in your organization.

  2. The following table indicates the privileges required for your organization's groups to view or edit elements of the Catalogs (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page and its associated panels (see Manage privileges and Privilege reference). The Commerce domain is only available to organizations in which Coveo for Commerce features are enabled.

    Action Service - Domain Required access level

    View catalogs

    Commerce - Catalogs
    Content - Sources
    Content - Fields
    Organization - Organization

    View

    Edit catalogs

    Content - Fields
    Content - Sources
    Organization - Organization

    View

    Commerce - Catalogs

    Edit

    Search - Execute Query

    Allowed

  3. Install the Coveo AI Search & Discovery application in your Shopify store. After you install it, you’ll be restricted to the Welcome page until you link your organization.

    Welcome page | Coveo for Commerce

Application home page

The home page of the Coveo AI Search & Discovery application displays a personalized setup guide, links to important tools like the Coveo Administration Console and Coveo Merchandising Hub (CMH), and key metrics such as revenue and recorded events.

Application home page | Coveo for Commerce
Note

The steps in the personalized setup guide don’t check themselves off automatically. You can check them off manually to keep track of your progress.

The first step is to link your Coveo organization to the application. This step is mandatory, so you won’t be able to leave the Welcome page and access the application home page or the other steps until you complete it.

Link your organization | Coveo for Commerce
Important

As noted in the prerequisites section, you can’t use a trial Coveo organization. Your organization also needs to have Coveo for Commerce features enabled. If you try to link an organization that’s not compatible, you’ll see an error message after you try to grant access and are redirected back to Shopify.

Unlinking and relinking organizations

When you unlink a Coveo organization from the Coveo AI Search & Discovery application, all of your Shopify-related resources will be deleted from the organization after 48 hours. If you relink to the same organization within 48 hours, these resources won’t be deleted and you won’t have to reconfigure your settings in the application.

If you link to another organization, all of your Shopify-related resources in the first organization will be deleted immediately. You’ll have to sync your Shopify product catalog with the new organization and reconfigure your settings.

Catalog sync

The second step is to sync your Shopify product catalog. All of the later steps depend on this, and you’ll see a warning on the other pages if you skip it.

Sync your product catalog | Coveo for Commerce

When you sync your Shopify product catalog, the Coveo AI Search & Discovery application creates the following resources in your Coveo organization:

Build the storefront search experience

The third step is to build a search interface.

Note

You won’t be able to track click and search events until you’ve implemented your search interface.

You can use either Coveo Atomic with Shopify Liquid or Coveo Headless with Shopify Hydrogen. However, you can’t build your search interface directly in the Coveo AI Search & Discovery application. Instead, you’ll be directed to documentation to help you with your implementation, depending on the method you choose.

Example Shopify search page | Coveo for Commerce

Track events

The fourth step is to make sure that you’re tracking events. You must track events correctly for reporting and to create AI models. All of the Coveo AI models require certain events to be tracked, with the specific events required depending on the model.

You can see more information about your events in the Coveo Administration Console on the Data Health (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page.

Tip

Whenever you manually navigate to the Data Health (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, it always defaults to displaying events from the past week, excluding the current day.
Administration Console: Data health page | Coveo Platform

Manage search rules

The fifth step is to add merchandising rules to determine how products are queried and displayed. This step isn’t mandatory, and you can move on to create AI models without setting up any rules.

The buttons on this page take you to the Coveo Merchandising Hub (CMH) Search manager tool in your Coveo organization, where you can review queries and create or modify rules.

Manage search rules | Coveo for Commerce

Manage AI models

The final step is to create the AI models that will power your storefront's search interface.

Manage AI models | Coveo for Commerce

The buttons on this page take you directly to the creation tool for each type of model in the Coveo Administration Console.

Administration Console: AI model creation tool | Coveo Platform

Every model has its own set of events that must be tracked, and you can verify that you’ve recorded the necessary events in the collapsible Prerequisites section for each one.

Collapsible AI model prerequisites section | Coveo for Commerce

Uninstall and reinstall the application

If you uninstall the Coveo AI Search & Discovery application without unlinking your Coveo organization and then reinstall the application within 48 hours (before the Shopify-related resources have been automatically deleted from your organization), your organization will still appear to be linked and your Shopify product catalog will initially appear to be synced.

However, each installation generates new API keys for authenticating with the Coveo Platform. You won’t be able to launch a manual sync or access the Events, Search, or Models pages of the application.

Catalog sync error after uninstalling and reinstalling the application | Coveo for Commerce

You’ll have to manually unlink and relink your organization to resolve the authentication error and begin using the Coveo AI Search & Discovery application again.