You create a CAS crawl that produces MDEX-compatible output (Dgidx input files) by creating a crawl (of any type) and configuring the crawl to write MDEX-compatible output. After CAS writes the output, Dgidx can process the files, create index files, and the MDEX Engine can load the index files.

Although you can create a crawl of any data source type, the most common scenario is to create a Record Store Merger crawl that is configured to write MDEX-compatible output. The advantage of this type of crawl configuration is the capability to merge many types of data and then write output that can be directly processed by Dgidx without using Forge. For example, this data can include product inventory, product descriptions, extended product reviews, and so on.

Here is a diagram of a CAS crawl that uses a Record Store Merger crawl to read from five record store instances and then write MDEX-compatible output for use by Dgidx:

This high-level process consists of the following steps:

Each step is covered in topics below.