Answers Integration Source Supports Custom Values (Winter '21 Release)

Product/Library Releases & New Features Winter '21 Release
1

The Integration Source Dimension / Filter in Report Builder is a great way to track differences in search trends for experiences that are integrated in multiple places. However historically the Integration Source Dimension / Filter for Answers would only support the values STANDARD or OVERLAY which limited your ability to segment analytics for your experiences.

As Answers customers have begun building powerful AI Search in even more creative places and use cases, such as within a support ticket form as a means of case deflection we need a more flexible way to track these use cases. That’s why Answers now supports any value as an Integration Source. This will allow customers to designate when searches are initiated from Standard and Overlay as well as any other integrations they may come up with. For example, a customer can set “source = Support Search” for Support Search integrations, allowing them to understand how many searches from Support Search versus a Standard Integration.

There are two ways to set the integration source on your Answers experience:

  1. Through the Code Editor - follow this Community post.
  2. Through the search bar integration - add querySource: [name] to the initAnswers function like below. See the Initialize the Library step in the Adding a Search Bar integration guide for the full instructions.
<head>
  <!-- Other stuff in the head here -->
  <link
    rel="stylesheet"
    type="text/css"
    href="https://assets.sitescdn.net/answers-search-bar/v1.0/answers.css"
  />
  <script src="https://assets.sitescdn.net/answers-search-bar/v1.0/answerstemplates.compiled.min.js"></script>
  <script>
    function initAnswers() {
      ANSWERS.init({
        apiKey: "REPLACE_ME_API_KEY",
        experienceKey: "REPLACE_ME_EXPERIENCE_KEY",
        experienceVersion: "PRODUCTION",
        locale: "en", 
        businessId: "REPLACE_ME_BUSINESS_ID",
        templateBundle: TemplateBundle.default,
        onReady: function() {
          ANSWERS.addComponent("SearchBar", {
            container: ".search_form",
            name: "search-bar", 
            redirectUrl: "REPLACE_ME_SEARCH_RESULT_URL",
            placeholderText: "Search...",
          });
        },
        querySource: "REPLACE_ME_QUERY_SOURCE”, //used to set a custom integration source
      });
    }
  </script>
  <script
    src="https://assets.sitescdn.net/answers-search-bar/v1.0/answers.min.js"
    onload="ANSWERS.domReady(initAnswers)"
    async
    defer
  ></script>
</head>

This feature will automatically be turned on for all accounts at Early Access. If your Answers experience has an integration source value other than STANDARD or OVERLAY, they will automatically feed in to your reporting.

To see an example of using integration source in Report Builder, visit the Answers Analytics in Report Builder unit.

1 Like
2

This is great! Now it’s even easier to compare analytics across integration locations!

3

How would you add querySource if you have an experience that doesn’t have an explicit search bar (e.g., for a help site case form deflection)?

Thanks!
Liz

4

Hey Liz,

In playing around we were able to set the integration source to case deflection on page load using the following:

  AnswersExperienceFrame.runtimeConfig.set('querySource', 'CASE_DEFLECTION');
5

I’ve actually been struggling to set my query source this way. I usually rely on the method @DJ_Corbett describes in this post. Can you please confirm that this method is still reliable?

6

Hey @henry_kremer - for now, yes! There will be some more official documentation on AnswersExperienceFrame and query source coming soon, but you can continue to use this method for the time being.