Ankiro Search for

EPiServer CMSby Martin Starch Sørensen

Head of Development

About Ankiro

Founded in 1999

15 employees

Strong focus on natural language technology

Represented in Denmark and Norway

Wide variety of both public and private customers

… for more information visit http://www.ankiro.com

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Key Features

State of the art language technology

Hosted installation means no costly hardware maintenance

EPiServer UI Integration

Publishing integration

Unified file indexing support (Microsoft Office, Adobe PDF)

Full support for EPiServer’s security model

Includes fully customizable search result pages

Advanced search statistics (add-on)

Built-in automated language branching of indexes

Language Technology

”Searching for meaning vs. searching for a phrase”

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Phonetic spellcheckingreneweble → renewable

Inflectionsemission ↔ emissions

Synonymsrenewable energy ↔ green energy

Conceptual relationsrenewable ↔ sustainable

Relationshipsenergy ↔ power

Subsetsrenewable energy → windmill

Related phrases”kyoto protocol”

User Interface Integration

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Seamlessly integrated

No external interface

Full editor control

Configuration and diagnostic tools

Extensive built-in validation

Editor ControlInstantaneous index updates when publishing documents or files

Editor control of indexing using dynamic properties

Custom document ranking with the “Term Binding” feature

Custom field weights

Control document importance on a document or content node level

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Module Architecture

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DocumentIndexer

EventsIndex Job

Markup

Ankiro Search Server

Search Statistics

Custom Indexing

Search Page

Search Control

Search Data Source

PAGE TYPE 1

PAGE TYPE 2

Localized Search IndexesEN

DA

Website User

Web Service

Two main components

• EPiServer Module• Search Server Backend

Web service

• Indexing• Searching• Statistics logging

Event based indexing

• Tracks Page and Unified File events

Data Source based searching

• Consistent with EPiServer best practice

Indexing

API allows for even more customizable indexing processes

Ability to index pages either directly through the EPiServer API or by requesting the page HTML from the web server

Supports multiple indexes for sub sites or protected content areas

Includes a standard EPiServer scheduled job with job history, providing detailed information about past indexing jobs

Automatic validation of indexing configurations, alerting the site developer to content at risk of not being indexed correctly

Dynamic Property Inheritance allows for quick and easy setup, since data can propagate down through the content tree

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Indexing Process

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Data

Page Data

Unified File

Event Model

Create Modify

Update

Delete

Ankiro Plugin

Page Type Filter

Extension Path Filter

Field Mappings

Document Weights

Term Bindings

Custom Events

Business Intelligence

External Data

Search Server

Index 1

Index 2

Index Configuration

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[Public] Standard Page

HeadingAuthorTopic

[Public] Custom Page

HeadingOrganization

Localized Index

TitleAuthorTopic

Index Browsing

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The unique Index Browsing feature allows a site administrator to constantly monitor the index.

When setting up a new site, this feature helps keeping the development cost and time at a minimum.

SearchingAnkiro Search for EPiServer includes an open sourced search page that has a wide range of built-in features.This helps keep developing costs low and minimizes the strain on the developers. The following features are available:

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Pagination support

Automatic filtering by active language and ability to change active language

Automatic excerpt of each matching document with high-lighted search terms

High-lighted search terms on the actual document itself

Ability to limit search results by any shared configured property value or by a date interval

Categorized search on any property

Automatic filtering by file type

Automatic handling of standard “search box” type logic, including AND, OR, wildcards and full sentence searches

Searching (cont’d)

Furthermore Ankiro Search for EPiServer allowsfor full control of the search environment, by exposing parts of the API to the developers. This has a lot ofadvantages compared to the standard search page:

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Customizable search page using an ASP.NET web control

Plug directly into a Search Data Source for more control

Visual Studio .NET integration

Security Model support

Ankiro Search for EPiServer completely mirrors EPiServer's security model, so that only pages that are allowed for the active user are returned in search results.

This means there’s no need to write custom security handlers – it works out of the box.

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Documentation

Complete documentation in English is available on Ankiro's partner site. It includes:

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Installation GuideQuick Start GuideIndex ConfigurationSetting up a Search PageReference Documentation

Developer

Editor’s Guide

Editor

Statistics (add-on)

Automatic logging of each search phrase and relevant clicks without any additional programming involved

Tracks user search behavior and gives the editor detailed reports about the evolution in search trends

Detailed reports and graphs including Top Search Terms, Top Search Terms Not Found, Top Search Terms Not Clicked etc.

… for more information please refer to Ankiro Reportal at http://www.ankiro.com/reportal

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Hosting

In order to minimize both initial and running hardware costs for the customer, Ankiro hosts the backend part of Ankiro Search for EPiServer on a datacenter located in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Customers can choose between several service levels, befitting their needs with regard to surveillance and uptime requirements.

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References18

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