The search testing environment determines which set of data is tested when you run a search test. When you create or open a search test, a default testing environment is selected automatically based on the available target sites and the current context. There are two aspects of the testing environment:
the search environment, such as a staging or production site
the set of facets and search configurations to include: deployed only, or undeployed changes from the current project
Choose the search testing environment that best suits the type of test you want to run. To see instructions for creating a test and choosing a search testing environment, see Creating a Search Test.
Search Environment
A search test is run against the indexed search environment on a deployed site. If your workflow includes more than one deployed site, such as a staging site and a production site, you can choose which one you want to run your test against. This is the search environment for the test.
The ATG Merchandising administrator configures which search environments are available for search testing and, if there is more than one, which one to use as the default. See Setting up Environments to Search.
Undeployed or Deployed Facets and Search Configurations
You can use search testing to test:
changes you made to facets and search configurations in your project
deployed facets and search configurations on a commerce site
If you are working in the context of a project, the search test environment includes your undeployed changes by default, but you can change this before you run the test. If you are browsing outside of a project, you can only test deployed facets and search configurations.
You do not need to re-index to test undeployed facets and search configurations. You do, however, have to deploy and index other assets, such as catalog items and price lists, to include them in a search test. If you create a new parent category in your project, for example, and run a search test with the new category as one of your search criteria, you will get an empty result set, even if the category contains indexed products or SKUs. This occurs because the search engine does not recognize the category.
Search tests do, however, take into account undeployed changes that affect category facets and the search configuration tree. Continuing with the example from the previous paragraph, if your new category encompasses existing categories, you could add a facet to the new category and test it by selecting an indexed sub-category that inherits the facet.
To test undeployed facets and search configurations, ATG Merchandising creates a temporary file that contains the undeployed definitions and sends it to the search engine along with the query. The search engine then applies those temporary facets and search configurations to the deployed data in the search index to generate the search results.
If you recently deployed your updated search configurations or facets, an indexing job must be run to update the post-index customizations file before you can test the newly deployed changes. For more information, see the ATG Search Administration Guide.
