At a base level, the Guided Search ITL is a combination of programs and configuration files. The Guided Search ITL has additional components that support a variety of features.
This illustration shows a high-level view of the Guided Search ITL architecture.
The components described in this section are the core components that all Guided Search implementations use, regardless of the additional features they implement.
Pipeline components will be discussed in this guide as is appropriate. For more detailed information about pipeline components, see the Developer Studio online help.
Forge and Dgidx use an instance configuration to accomplish their tasks. An instance configuration includes a pipeline, a dimension hierarchy, and an index configuration.
The pipeline functions as a script for the entire process of transforming source data to Guided Search records.
The pipeline describes a data processing workflow as a graph of data transformation stages, known as components, connected by links across which data flows.
The components specify the format and the location of the source data, any changes to be made to the source data (manipulation), and how to map each record’s source properties to Guided Search properties and dimensions.
If you intend to run partial updates, your instance configuration will contain two pipelines: one for running baseline updates and one for partial updates. See the Partial Updates Guide for details on setting up the partial updates pipeline.
The dimension hierarchy contains a unique name and ID for each dimension, as well as names and IDs for any dimension values created in Developer Studio. The Data Foundry uses these unique names and IDs when it maps your data’s source properties to dimensions.
These names and IDs can be created in three different ways:
The dimension hierarchy is used during indexing to support the incremental filtering that is the essence of Guided Navigation.
