Indexing 101 – Athos Search & Product Discovery

Indexing is the process of sharing information between the product data that lives in your ecommerce platform and Athos Commerce. This is how Athos gets the product data needed to render results on your website.

You can view your indexing status on the Data Sync Status page. A checkmark means that the indexing is complete.

Learn about How Indexing is Scheduled.

When to Index

You should index:

When new products, SKUs, or categories are added within your platform
When inventory or pricing is updated and changes need to be published immediately.
When adding/removing/changing synonyms
When creating a new field in Field Settings or when toggling an existing field (using a new field for search, sort, or filtering)
When product and product attribute data is updated within your platform, i.e., changes in price or stock status, add/remove products, etc.
When adding/modifying exact match synonyms
When adding/modifying ignore terms synonyms

You do not need to reindex for the following:

When adding/removing/changing query replacements
When setting up a redirect
When leveraging visual merchandising or campaigns

Syncing Product Data

Normally, your product data will be automatically synced at regular intervals. However, there may be times you need to re-index your data feed before your site's next update interval. Usually, this need arises because product details have changed or new products have been added that you would like shown to shoppers as soon as possible. To trigger a manual re-indexing, follow the steps below.

Go to the Data Sync page in the Athos Search & Product Discovery console.

Click the "Sync Actions" drop-down menu on the far right of the page and choose "Sync Now" to begin the indexing process.

The status of the indexing will be represented in the box underneath “Current Data Sync Status”.

Indexing is broken into two components: feed regeneration and the indexing of the feed. The time it takes this process to complete depends on your setup and platform; it can range anywhere from a few minutes to many hours. The feed regeneration occurs when Athos uses a connector or API to generate a data feed. There is no regeneration process if your data is provided to us using a CSV or XML feed.

Depending on your ecommerce platform or feed type, you also have the ability to sync product data changes to your site within minutes using Athos’s live indexing capability. Currently, live indexing is available to merchants using the Shopify platform or a platform that uses a JSON data feed.

Changing an Automatic Syncing Schedule

At the top of the Data Sync page, the date and time for indexing processes is shown. The "Last Sync" section displays when your feed was last indexed, while "Next Sync Scheduled For" displays when your feed will be indexed again.

Note: To learn more about how and when we schedule your next indexing time, click here.

To change how often your feed will be automatically indexed, follow the steps below.

Click the "Edit Schedule" button on the top right of the page.

Click the "..." button at the far right of the appropriate data connection and click "Edit". A new page will appear.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to the “Data Sync Schedule” section and change “Time Of Day” to whatever works best for you. We recommend that you set the automatic indexing time to off hours so that the indexing does not interfere with your business operations.

If you’re eligible for live indexing and would like to enable it, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

Note: Only Athos admin users can set the indexing interval to less than a day.

Setting up Alerts for Indexing

You can set up automatic alerts for successful or failed index attempts. You can do this by going to the My Account page. From there, you can toggle on the option for “Indexing Success” and “Indexing Failure” under notifications.

Why Indexing Fails

Indexing can sometimes fail if the server doesn’t respond or if there is a glitch in the response. Try running your index again and see if the problems persist. Please submit a ticket to the Athos Commerce Help Desk if the index continues to fail.

Recent Feed/Index Sizes

In addition to being able to update your index, the Data Sync Status page also displays a chart of your recent data feed/index sizes.

The Recent Feed/Index Sizes chart shows up to 10 of your last indexes. The dark blue bar ("Data Feed Size") shows the gross number of products after we've downloaded your feed. The light blue bar ("Final Index Size") shows the net number of records after any business rules have been applied, such as but not limited to exclusions. At the bottom of the chart, you will see the dates and times when the indexing processes occurred.