Skip to content

Search in portals

Search in portals

The search—or more precisely, the quick finding of information such as products—has for years been a critical aspect of good websites or online shops and thus successful eBusiness. Therefore, much time and effort have been invested to make search within the ADIB portals as efficient and easy to use as possible.

Basically, there are 3 different search options:

  • Using the facets on the left side
  • Using the free-text search at the top
  • Using the filters in the table header in the “TABLE” and “FLEXIBLE” views

In addition, it is also possible to search within fields of the complex “Subtable” attribute.

The definition and configuration of these elements are determined in the CentralStation as part of configuring the portal.

Faceted search allows the user to filter the desired products very easily. Simply click on a value within an attribute to immediately apply the corresponding filter. Then further filter criteria can be selected within the facets to refine the search step by step.

The numbers shown behind attribute values indicate how many products have that value. Thus, the user immediately sees how many hits will be displayed.

In the illustration, the elements have the following meaning:

  • (1) : Burger menu to hide/show the facets
    • Note that on a smartphone (with reduced screen width), facets are hidden by default and can be shown via this button.
  • (2) : Icon to collapse/expand the facet values
    • Especially when many attributes have been defined as facets, not all facets are visible at first without scrolling. Clicking this icon helps to collapse/expand the list to access values more easily.

NOTE: In configuration, the parameter "show_max_facet_items" defines from how many items a facet is collapsed by default.

  • (3), (4) :A search facet including a free-text search within the facet values
    • (3) : Click the facet heading to open or close it.
    • (4) : In the search field, you can search for a value within the facet—especially useful when there are many possible values.

portal_search-1 \Image 19: Details of changes made to a product

After selecting the appropriate filters via faceted search, these search filters appear in the top area (1):

  • (2) : You can remove a filter at any time by clicking the “X” next to the element.
  • (3) : You can also clear all filters at once by clicking the “Clear all” button at the right end of the list.
  • (4) : Here you see the number of displayed search results.

portal_search-2 \Image 20: Activated filters and search result

NOTE: Multiple facet types are available, differing in sorting mode (alphabetical or by hit count), whether to show the count in parentheses, whether there is an internal free-text field, etc.

Free-text Search

The free-text search works similarly to Google search: you enter a term and all products containing that term are searched and displayed. In the ADIB portal, free-text search also offers some customization options defined in configuration in the CentralStation:

  • "searchbar_preview" : Defines whether suggestion values should appear under the free-text field during input (see illustration).

portal_search-3 \Image 21: Suggestion values shown during input

  • "show_advanced_search" : Defines whether the field selector (to the right of the free-text field) should appear.
    • This allows the user to restrict the search to ONE field, which is especially beneficial for generic terms.
      • For example, searching only in the “SAP-Nummer” field for the substring “10113”.
    • It is also possible to search in fields within a Subtable attribute.
      • This allows displaying all products where, for instance, in the bill-of-materials (stückliste) the description field contains a certain term.

portal_search-4 \Image 22: Restricting free-text search to specific values

  • "search_bar_separator" : Defines that searching for multiple terms (separated by a delimiter) is allowed.
    • Useful when you want to search many products at once imported from an Excel file or another list.
      • In the shown portal, the separator used is “,” (comma).

portal_search-5 \Image 23: Searching for multiple products in the search field using a configurable delimiter

NOTE: Only those fields for which you have assigned the usage/direction “SEARCH” in portal configuration will be searched!

Search via Field Names in Table Headers

This search is largely equivalent to faceted search. ADIB portals allow filtering results by clicking on field names (attributes) in the “TABLE” and “FLEXIBLE” views:

  • Click the attribute (e.g., “Hersteller” / “Manufacturer”)—a list with all distinct values appears, along with the count of products per value (in parentheses).
  • Select a value—then the table is automatically filtered, and the filter appears as an element in the top bar.

portal_search-5 \Image 24: Filtering in TABLE/FLEXIBLE view by clicking a column header

  • Afterwards, you can refine the filter by selecting another attribute and value (e.g., “Monitor” as “Product Category”).

portal_search-7 \Image 25: Refining the filter via a second attribute

NOTE: The only difference between “TABLE” and “FLEXIBLE” views is that in “FLEXIBLE”, the user defines themselves which attributes to display (via templates). The filtering functionality is identical.

NOTE: You enable header-based filtering by setting "searchportal_filter_table_headers" to 1/true when creating the portal.

Search in Subtable Fields

If you included attributes of type “Subtable” when creating the portal, their values can also be searched flexibly:

  • Within a product detail view

portal_search-8 \Image 26: Searching within a product’s Subtable

  • Via free-text search by specifying which Subtable field to search (optional—you can also search across all fields).
    • IIn this example, searching in the field “PrdBez” (product description).

portal_search-8 \Image 27: Searching across all products in a specific Subtable field