Facet sets allow users to refine a query by searching within an existing result set. For example, an end-user conducts a search for luggage on a commerce site, then refines their search by color, price, or material. Oracle ATG Web Commerce Search returns refinement results based on settings in a refineConfig.xml file. This file defines which properties of the indexed products to return as possible facets. Before returning results, Oracle ATG Web Commerce Search retrieves the possible values for the properties configured in refineConfig.xml. Thus, the existing query can be resubmitted with an additional constraint that limits the results to one of the enumerated property values.

At query time, Search can control which configuration to use and global parameters for the calculation, using the following attributes:

<query refineConfig="name" refineConfigDefault="default"
refineConfigMapKey="key" refineConfigMapProp="prop" refineMax="max"
refineTop="top" refineMin="min"

The name value must be a valid name of a facet set loaded into the index. If no value is given, no calculation is made.