Install and configure the native integration package

The native integration provides the product-specific setup when implementing recommendations for Optimizely solutions.

Concepts

Scope

A scope is a context in which tracking and catalog export occurs. A scope contains an instance of an Optimizely Product Recommendations engine and one or more websites communicating with that instance. Scopes are mutually exclusive and never nested; a tracking action occurs only in a single scope. Recommendations for products belonging to a specific scope are not given for tracking actions occurring in another scope.

Alias

A scope alias (referred to as alias) is a shorthand version of the scope's name. Aliases are used as suffixes to appSettings key attribute values. The purpose of an alias is to improve the readability of configuration settings. Aliases are used in configuration settings only; they are not used in the API.

Scopeless

Settings that do not use an alias suffix are called scopeless. In earlier versions of the configuration schema, all settings are scopeless. Scopeless settings are used as a fallback if a requested setting is not defined for a specific scope. This makes the new configuration schema backward-compatible.

If asked for a valid setting for scope X, and scope X is not defined in the configuration file, the internal configuration class falls back to the corresponding scopeless setting.

Install

The native integration package is available through the Episerver NuGet feed. See also Install and configure recommendations.

Use the TrackingOptions class to enable tracking using appsetting.json file, or a startup class. Below is an example using appsettings.json.

{
      "EPiServer": {
        "Tracking": {
          "TrackingOptions": {
            "TrackingEnabled": true
          }
        }
      }
    }

After installing it, you must modify the configuration to include settings for your Product Recommendations environment, which reads its configuration from the PersonalizationOptions class. You can use appsettings.json file to configure options.

Example

{
      "EPiServer": {
        "Personalization": {
          "PersonalizationOptions": {
            "BaseApiUrl": "https://defaultbaseurl.com",
            "Site": "defaultsite",
            "ClientToken": "defaultclienttoken",
            "AdminToken": "defaultadmin",
            "Channel": "test",
            "RequestTimeout": 30,
            "TrackingMode": "ClientSide",
            "SkipUserHostTracking": true,
            "UsePseudonymousUserId": true,
            "FeedCatalogName": "Test",
            "FeedSkipProductLevel": true,
            "Scopes": [
              {
                "AdminToken": "scopeadmin",
                "BaseApiUrl": "https://scopebaseurl.com",
                "ClientToken": "scopeclienttoken",
                "Site": "scopesite",
                "Channel": "scopetest",
                "FeedCatalogName": "ScopeTest",
                "FeedSkipProductLevel": false,
                "ScopeId": "scopeid",
                "Name": "Scope Test"
              }
            ] 
          }
        }
      }
    }

The options described in the following can be used.

Recommendation keys

The export function has a few settings in addition to those above. Apply them via code on the default CatalogFeedSettings instance.

var catalogFeedSettings = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<CatalogFeedSettings>(); 
    catalogFeedSettings.DescriptionPropertyName = "...";

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Note

Differences between the authentication mechanism of EPiServer.ServiceAPI and EPiServer.Personalization.Commerce may lead to the incorrect functioning of user change tracking or catalog feed download. To avoid these problems, you should install EPiServer.ServiceAPI in a separate application.