Implementing a Third Party Vertical | Yext Hitchhikers Platform

What You’ll Learn

In this section, you will learn:

• How to implement a third party vertical (backend configuration)
• How to implement a third party vertical (frontend configuration)

How to implement a Third Party Vertical (backend)

In this unit, you’ll learn how to implement each of the available built-in Third Party Verticals. Each of these Third Party Verticals has a different set of configurations required for setup. The “source” parameter is used to specify the type of third-party. The Third Party Vertical JSON should be input within the “verticals” object. You can use any vertical configuration ID you’d like - in the screenshot above, the vertical configuration ID is “links” (this will be used to reference this vertical in your frontend code).

While all Third Party Verticals are implemented in the Search Configuration file, the requirements needed and JSON syntax vary by backend - see below for details on each:

Google Custom Search Engine

Requirements:

• cx - Also known as “Search Engine ID” in Google Custom Search portal.
• apiKey - The API Key for Google Custom Search. We recommend enabling billing and increasing the quota limit to support the volume of queries.

Optional Parameters:

• siteRestricted - The Site Restricted Google API supports an unlimited number of searches and allows you to specify up to 10 domains to search. You can reference this Hitchhiker Community post for more information on siteRestricted.
• useSynonyms - This allows you to specify which GCSE synonyms should be used to surface results.

JSON:

{
  "verticals": {
    "links": { //Update to the vertical configuration ID you want to use
        "name": "Links", //Links vertical display name in experience
        "siteRestricted": true, //Optional parameter
        "useSynonyms": "ALL_SYNONYMS", //Optional parameter
        "source": "GOOGLE_CSE",
        "apiKey": "{{YOUR_API_KEY}}",
        "cx": "{{YOUR_CX}"
    }
  }
}

Bing

Requirements:

• customConfig - The unique identifier for your Bing Custom Search instance.
• subscriptionKey - The subscription key received when signing up for Bing Custom Search.

JSON:

{
  "verticals": {
    "links": { //Update to the vertical configuration ID you want to use
      "name": "Links", //Links vertical display name in experience
      "source": "BING_CSE",
      "customConfig": "{{YOUR_CUSTOMCONFIG}}",
      "subscriptionKey": "{{YOUR_SUBSCRIPTIONKEY}}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Zendesk

Requirements:

• Zendesk subdomain, e.g, {subdomain}.zendesk.com. You can find more information on Zendesk subdomains here .

JSON:

{
  "verticals": {
    "links": { //Update to the vertical configuration ID you want to use
      "name": "Links", //Links vertical display name in experience
      "subdomain": "{{YOUR_ZENDESK_SUBDOMAIN_STRING}}",
      "source": "ZENDESK",
    }
  }
}

How to implement a third party backend (frontend)

With Jambo, implementing the frontend for a built-in third party vertical is simple!

You should add a “Links” page using the vertical-standard built-in as you would for any other standard page in the experience. You then need to navigate to the newly created JSON file for this page (Links.json, in this case) and update the vertical key based on your Search Configuration file. You’ll also need to set the cardType parameter to “link-standard”. Finally, you’ll want to update the pageTitle value to “Link Search” to be representative of the purpose of the page.