The Acquia Commerce Manager modules create two entities when synchronizing products to Drupal: a product entity and a SKU entity. When creating product listings, you should use the product entity and reference fields and values from the SKU entity where possible.
Search API indexes can be created for the product entity type to facilitate creating product listings, related product lists, and search listings. Facets can be created with the indexed values, and all content from the commerce back end can be indexed.
The product and SKU entities have a loose reference in the form of a custom SKU Reference field. The SKU Reference field is not a typical entity reference field; it does not require the entity to exist and is a free text text field. The reference is handled by the field type plugin, and it creates a computed property that attempts to load a referenced entity when the field is being used.
Since a SKU is not easily relatable to a product in a view, you should instead use a search index-based view.
Keyword search listings and facet filtering
Search API-based views can be used for products. Before you create a view, determine if Solr should be used to create your product listings based on the following questions:
- How many products are going to be included in the index?
- How many fields do you need to index?
If using a Search API-based view makes sense for your website, you can use the information in the following sections to guide you.
Available fields
Many SKU attributes will not be available in views without custom handling. For information about special handling for attributes, see SKU attributes, product options, and product categories.
Additionally, keyword search and facet fields must be added to the search index to be available as search and facet fields.
Configure a Product search index
Using Search API, a developer can create product search indexes in any available search back end. To do this, create a Search server, and then create a new search index based on the following item selections:
- Data source: Content
- Select None except those selected
- Type: product content
- Configure the fields (
field_skuscan be expanded to include entity values)
Facets
By using Search API, a developer can enable the Facets module, which allows for the creation of facets from the values available in the index.
After you enable the Facet module, configure your facets based on the search display. Facets require the field to be included in the index.