9. Content Import¶
Basic recommendation algorithms are statistics-based and need only the product ID and user ID. This information is provided by the event tracking as described in chapter 4. Event Types. There are several use cases where the recommendation engine requires additional information linked to the products. The most important cases are:
- Filtering results based on the category the product is located in (Category Filter)
- Filtering results based on price and product availability (General Filters)
- Sub-models based on custom attribute grouping (Submodels)
- An additional export/import interface is designed to provide editor-based models (6. Recommendation Models)
There are four different ways to import data into the recommendation system:
- In-Event: During the event tracking process, where related data is attached to a click event (e.g. categorypath information)
- Push interface: Classic HTTP POST-based import. It is suitable for uploading single content or editor lists
- Pull interface: The recommendation engine loads an exported file from the specified location in the background. It was designed to upload big portions of information, for example a weekly update of the whole product catalog
- Trigger logic: The recommendation engine triggers a transactional full import at the customer's system. Therefore some custom development or a plugin is needed.
Tip
You can find Specification for Import interfaces in the developer guide under Content API.