Facets for search

This is for:

Merchandiser
Important

The Facet manager is currently in open beta. Contact your Coveo representative to learn about the Facet manager and get involved.

In the Search manager of the Coveo Merchandising Hub (CMH), merchandisers can configure a facet collection to optimize the filtering experience for visitors on search result pages. facets are dynamic filters that help users narrow down their search results based on specific attributes such as brand, price, category, or other custom product attributes.

Facet collection displayed for a search| Coveo

With this tool, merchandisers can configure the Default facet collection, which applies to all queries sent from a given property. This default facet collection will be used for all search result pages, regardless of the specific query or context.

Facets in a facet collection can be configured to be either manually pinned or selected by relevance:

  • Manually pinned facets are manually selected by the merchandiser and will always appear in the facet collection. They will always appear at the top of the facet list, regardless of the visitor’s query. This lets you ensure that certain facets are always visible and easily accessible to visitors. See Manually pinned facets for more information.

  • Facets selected by relevance are dynamically determined by Coveo based on the visitor’s query. Merchandisers can decide how many of these to display in the facet collection. See Facets selected by relevance for more information.

Example

A merchandiser managing an outdoor gear site wants to improve its facet selection.

To help visitors easily refine their search results, the merchandiser creates a facet collection in the CMH and manually pins the Brand, Size, and Price facets, ensuring that these always appear at the top of the facet list.

To further optimize the shopping experience, the merchandiser activates the Facets selected by relevance feature and sets the number of dynamically selected facets to 2. These facets will be added alongside the manually pinned ones. In total, 5 facets will appear on any search result pages using this facet collection.

When a visitor searches for "backpacks", Coveo automatically determines which additional facets to display and the order in which they appear. In this case, the most relevant facets are Waterproofing and Volume. These are added to the manually pinned facets, resulting in the following facet list:

  • Brand

  • Size

  • Price

  • Waterproofing

  • Volume

Prerequisites

Expand this section to view the prerequisites for using the Facet manager.

Your organization must:

  • Have the Facet or Multi-value facet options enabled on the Fields (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page for every field intended to be used as a facet.

  • Have the Facet generator option enabled on the Fields (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page for every field intended to be used as a relevance-based facet.

  • Have a compatible version of Headless. We recommend version 3.24.1 or later.

Create a facet collection

To create a facet collection from within the Search manager:

  1. From the navigation tabs, select Facets.

  2. Click Create facet collection.

  3. Select the facet fields that you want to pin and click Add selected. These facet fields will always be pinned on top of the facet section. See manually pinned facets for more information.

  4. Once all the facets you want to pin are selected, click Next: order and settings.

  5. On the Facets order and settings page, you can:

    • Set the order of pinned facets. This determines the order in which pinned facets should appear in the facet section.

    • Enable the Facets selected by relevance option. This lets you define dynamic spots that will be filled by Coveo with the most relevant facets based on the visitor’s query. See Facets selected by relevance for more information.

    • Click Modify next to a pinned facet to edit its settings.

    Important
    Important

    When a facet field’s settings are modified, the changes are applied throughout the selected property.

    • On the Facet tab of the editor:

      • Under Displayed name, enter the facet title as it should be displayed to visitors for each available language.

      • From the Facet type dropdown menu, you can update the default facet type (if applicable).

      • Under Selection options, choose whether the facet should be a single or multi-select facet.

      • Under Facet default state, choose whether the facet values for this facet should be open or closed by default.

    • On the Values tab of the editor:

      • Under Values sorting, choose the type of value sorting that should be applied to the facet values.

      • Under Number of values shown, enter the number of values displayed before a visitor needs to select Show more on the facet to see more values.

  6. Click Publish now.

Modify a facet collection

To edit an existing facet collection from within the Search manager:

  1. From the navigation tabs, select Facets.

  2. Locate the facet collection that you want to modify, and then click Modify > Edit collection.

  3. Proceed to edit the facet collection as indicated in the Create a facet collection section.

Delete a facet collection

To delete an existing facet collection from within the Search manager:

  1. From the navigation tabs, select Facets.

  2. Locate the facet collection that you want to delete, and then click Modify > Delete.