The Sitecore.SharedSource.DatasourceIndexer makes it possible to retrieve search results by content from items referenced by datasources.
A widely used technique is the use of shared content blocks on pages. The problem with this technique is the content which is displayed in these blocks.
A typical question from your customer: "I'm searching the website with the term '{BlockTitle}' but my page is not returned, but the content is obviously on the page."
From a technical point of view this makes a lot of sense, because the concept of 'Pages' don't really exist in Sitecore. Sitecore.ContentSearch searches through items instead.
This module is a solution to this problem. It indexes fields on related datasource items into the indexed item, and results in those 'missing pages' to be returned from the search query!
The module is available on NuGet with id: Sitecore.ContentSearch.DatasourceIndexer (https://www.nuget.org/packages/Sitecore.SharedSource.DatasourceIndexer)
- Install Nuget Package
- Install Sitecore package (/Sitecore_Package/Sitecore.SharedSource.DatasourceIndexer-*.zip)
The Sitecore package installs a Field Section into the "/sitecore/templates/System/Layout/Sections/Rendering Options" item. As a result, any rendering-definition (Sublayout, MVC Controller Rendering, Webcontrol) will have a new field available: "Index Datasource Fields"
- Publish the above item.
- Reindex your indexes
Of course you wouldn't want to index any field on any datasource item, you want to have control of what will be indexed. For example: You have a Sublayout which renders the introduction of a related news-article. You (probably) wouldn't want to index the news-article's Content, but just the introduction-field (because only the introduction is visible on the page).
You can provide fields (pipe-separated) in the "Index Datasource Fields"-field of the rendering-definition to configure which fields from the datasource item will be indexed (screenshot above).
By default the datasource content will be indexed to a field named "datasourcecontent". This can be configured in the App_Config\Include\Sitecore.SharedSource.DatasourceIndexer\Sitecore.SharedSource.DatasourceIndexer.config file. This is a simple patch to add the ComputedIndexField. It would be possible to change this field to "_content" to include the datasources-content to the regular index content field. I personally like to have a bit more control, so I separated the content.
Devices
By default this module will only work for renderings on the Default device. If you want to control which devices are processed simply make a change to the "Sitecore.SharedSource.DatasourceIndexer:Devices" setting in the same config file.
You may enter pipe-separated ID's of the Devices ("{0000-...}|{0000-xxx}")
If the setting is empty, it will use the Default device. If any ID has been provided, it will ONLY use the provided ID's.c
To make sure any item which has datasource-content is updated correctly when making changes to those datasources I've added a processor to the 'indexing:getDependencies'-pipeline. It uses the Link-database to get all related items and adds them to the Indexing queue.
Enough talk, let's get some examples!
In the screenshot above we've confiured the Block-rendering to index the 'Title' and the 'Content' field from the datasource.
I've made a 'Block', which is a shared content item.
Added the Block-rendering to a page called BlockPage, and selected the Block2-datasource item.
By default Sitecore ContentSearch will not return my BlockPage when I use the term 'module'. But this is where this module comes in:
I've added a sample SearchResultItem-class (Sitecore.SharedSource.DatasourceIndexer.ContentSearch.SearchTypes.DatasourceSearchResultItem) to explain how to search the index content.
string term = Request["s"];
var index = Sitecore.ContentSearch.ContentSearchManager.GetIndex("sitecore_web_index");
using (var ctx = index.CreateSearchContext())
{
var searchResults = ctx.GetQueryable<Sitecore.SharedSource.DatasourceIndexer.ContentSearch.SearchTypes.DatasourceSearchResultItem>();
searchResults.Where(x => x.Path.StartsWith(Sitecore.Context.Site.RootPath));
searchResults.Where(x => x.TemplateName == "Page");
searchResults.Where(x => x.Content.Contains(term) || x.DatasourceContent.Contains(term));
}If you decide to use the regular "_content"-field you can use the default Sitecore.ContentSearch.SearchResultItem and it's property Content, no need for the extra || x.DatasourceContent.Contains(term).
Result:
