Glossary

The following table outlines common terminology used throughout the integration guide.

Term	Description
Analyser	Component invoked in the Merchandising Studio that performs textual modifications on search terms such as stemming or the removal of stop words; each language has its own analyser.
Analytics	The discovery and communication of meaningful patterns in data. Vendors include Google, Coremetrics, and Omniture.
Attribute	A type of data construct that is shared across items (e.g. brand, size or colour).
Attribute Value	Data assigned against an attribute for a particular item.
Configuration	Refers to Fredhopper Configuration which holds basic environment settings, search configuration and business rules.
Data Enrichment	The term given to the process of amending / adding value or meaning to an attribute value (e.g. deriving an availability flag based on stock levels) - generally executed in the Data Manager
Data Manager (DM)	Fredhopper Data Manager - Enriched version of the ETL tool Pentaho PDI (also known as Pentaho Kettle) Metadata-driven Extraction, Transformation and Loading (ETL) capability.
Data Source	A document or product which provides data input to the Data Manager application.
Data Transformations	The steps executed in the ETL process, to transform input data (usually csv files) into a Fredhopper readable format, called FAS-XML. Generally executed in the Data Manager.
Environment	A full Fredhopper setup consisting of Data Manager, indexer and query instances which covers the full pipeline from customer data pickup to content delivery.
Facet	The term given for a component of the Fredhopper response which enables after search refinement.
FAS	An acronym for "Fredhopper Access Server" - the Fredhopper component which provides a query server.
FAS-XML	The term associated with the file format which represents enriched catalogue information; this is typically constructed by the Data Manager.
Fredhopper (FHR)	Fredhopper - Platform for Search, Navigation and Merchandising.
Full Re-Index	A process whereby previous catalogue data in FAS is implicitly deleted and entirely replaced by new data, via the conversion of FAS-XML into indices.
Incremental Update	A process whereby the existing catalogue data in FAS may be explicitly amended, deleted or enriched. Most implementations use this approach to provide lightweight updates about catalogue information throughout the day, such as price or stock level changes.
Indexer	The name given to an offline server in the Fredhopper deployment which encompasses the Data Manager; Merchandising Studio and a query server too. Business rules and catalogue data are propagated to the query servers from this location.
Indices	A binary data structure which contains indexed data provided via the FAS-XML; this is the data source referenced by the query server.
Instance	An instance represents a single occurrence of an installation (e.g. a Data Manager instance or a Fredhopper instance). The instance is based on the functionality of the installation, but will have a configuration specific to it.
Item	Entities which can be searched or browsed for. An item encompasses the concept of master products (products) and - optionally - SKUs (variants).
Item store	An index file which contains all attributes and attribute values for items defined within FAS-XML.
Live attribute	The term associated with an attribute defined within the Merchandising Studio to be included in the navigation index. An attribute must be 'live' in order to power a navigation facet.
Load Balancing	Computer networking method to distribute workload across a cluster of servers. In a Fredhopper deployment, this is the software or hardware which forwards incoming queries across all of the active query servers.
Locale	A country / language combination expressed in a standardised format, for example, en_GB for English for Great Britain; en_US for English for the US.
Localisation	The ability to present different attribute values for different locales.
Managed Services	The term associated with Fredhopper software provided as a Service.
Merchandising	Refers to the variety of products available for sale and the display of those products in such a way that it stimulates interest and entices customers to make a purchase.
Minimum coverage	A configurable display condition setting within the Merchandising Studio relative to navigation facets; restrains display unless a certain percentage of items in the Fredhopper response has a value for a particular attribute.
Monitoring	The process of collecting and actively analysing deployment state data. Relative to Fredhopper, typical activities can be verifying the status of a re-index or availability of a query server.
Navigation index	An index (indice) file which contains all attribute values for live attributes
On premise	The term associated with Fredhopper software being deployed on a non Fredhopper hosted environment.
Path (Merchandising Studio)	A count of query interactions relative to the homepage. For example, clicking on a facet value or a pagination link both correspond to +1 in terms of the path count. This functionality can be used to dictate when a facet should be displayed or indeed when Fredhopper should switch from servicing responses with a summary path template to a lister page template.
PIM	An acronym for "Product Information Management" - this is typically an application which hosts product information content.
Presentation field	The term associated with any attribute defined to be returned as part of the Fredhopper response.
Product	The entity of an item (which may or may not be referenced by variants) that resides within a primary universe.
Professional Services (PS)	The branch of Fredhopper that provides consultants who support and assist clients in implementing Fredhopper software.
Publishing	The act of broadcasting business rules from the indexer to the query servers in the Fredhopper deployment topology.
QPS	An acronym for "Queries Per Second" - this is a numeric metric which shows, on average, the traffic load presented to Fredhopper from a front-end application.
Query engine	The layer of any Fredhopper instance (online or offline) which parses incoming query API requests and generates the Fredhopper response.
Ranking	The name given to a rule within the Merchandising Studio which defines the metric(s) or relationship which governs the relative sequence by which items should be returned within the Fredhopper query response.
Ranking Cocktail	The term given to the process of merging multiple input metrics to create a single output metric for the purpose of ranking. Unlike traditional ranking approaches, ranking cocktails should avoid the threat of attribute starvation.
Redirect	The name given to a rule within the Merchandising Studio which, for a given set of terms, will return a user defined URL in the Fredhopper response - rather than a search result set of items - for a given input search term. Common redirect input search terms configured to be redirects are: 'contact', 'open times' and 'careers'.
Result Modification	Functionality within the Merchandising Studio which allows a user to overrule the outcome of a navigation or search query. For example, blocking, promoting or demoting products or groups of products.
Search Index	An index file which contains analysed attribute values for attributes used in search.
Search Pass	A particular phase of the overall search algorithm. Typically these are configured to meet a particular purpose, e.g. ID search.
Search Profile	A means of querying Fredhopper behind a virtual 'mask'. Search profiles can be defined to ignore particular search passes of even attributes.
Search Refinements	Phrase associated with the user action of selecting facet values during navigation
Service Type	Fredhopper offers multiple services: Fredhopper Access Server (FAS), Suggest as well as the Upload Service.
Sorting	Similar to ranking; however we define sorting to be the user controlled activity performed on the generated page, while ranking is a business user activity performed in the Merchandising Studio. For example, Mens > Sale may be configured to be ranked by a combination of unit sales and margin as part of a business rule. We would define that to be ranking. When the user opts to view items by price in ascending order, we call this sorting.
Staging	The environment in a Fredhopper deployment that is used for integration testing purposes.
Standard CSV Set	Term used to describe the basic data input format expected by Fredhopper. Consists of four CSV files (no variants) or six files (variants present) that describe the relationship between categories, items and attributes. Can be read by the Standard Transformations (see Standard Transformations).
Standard JSON Set	Term used to describe the basic data input format expected by Fredhopper. Consists of two JSON files (no variants) or three files (variants present) that describe the relationship between categories, items and attributes. Can be read by the Standard Transformations (see Standard Transformations).
Standard Transformations	A standardised set of Transformations (see Data Transformations), that work for standardised data input files (see Standard CSV Set or Standard JSON Set). For advanced functionality or different input formatting, customisation of this set is mandatory.
Synonym	A word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language. Used to rectify search queries that lead to poor results.
Targeting	The term associated with the process of reacting to a defined situation. Example triggers may be current browsing behaviour (such as visiting a specific catalogue location) or - more commonly - past preferences or transaction history
Trigger	An event upon which actions can be executed. There are two types of triggers that are used in the Fredhopper context: Internal triggers that are dependent on the result that is generated upon a request to Fredhopper; and external triggers - the latter are defined URL parameters (and their values) which can be delivered together with a Fredhopper Location inside a query (the Location itself can also be used for triggering). Typically, internal triggers are fixed while external triggers can be customized to the your needs.
Universe	A Universe is the highest level of a hierarchy which contains all the items in a web store; in other words, its catalogue. A universe can be further broken down into categories, sub-categories, and so on. Typical Fredhopper implementations feature just one universe, though multiple universe deployments are also supported. Universes are strictly segregated - they cannot communicate with each other or interact in any way. The documentation refers to catalog01 as the name of the universe in most examples.
User Location	Refers to a particular catalogue location combination. For example, the following two user locations are different: home > mens > sale and home > sale > mens.
Variant	The entity of an item which must reference a product that resides within a secondary universe.