If I am using DD4T or MVC framework, what are the options integrating smarttarget? Obviously we won't to be able to use the TBBs.
asked Nov 19, 2013 at 19:31
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3 Answers
There's no reason why you still can't use the TBB's. I'd recommend using them in the event you wish to move away from the DD4T mvc framework in the future.
Simply output your content as REL and transform the TCDL tags yourself when you return your content from the broker.
answered Nov 19, 2013 at 19:44
You can also query Fredhopper directly via the query web service -passing the various facets you wish to query on.
Fredhopper will return results that contains several components such as a breadcrumb, facetmap, item lister and promotions.
You can then render these as you wish.
Cheers
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3You absolutely can, but I would consider that a last resort since you lose the functionality added by SmartTarget. An example of that would be the filtering by region and maximum items - you'd need to implement that yourself then. The tags and controls (and the API) are there to help you query Fredhopper easily and display the results correctly. It's rare that you would need to go directly to Fredhopper. Commented Nov 20, 2013 at 9:04
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Not sure about regions, but isn't max items just "fh_view_size"? Ultimately filtering can be achieved using the Fredhopper Query Language can't it - I agree though that tags and controls make this easier.– NeilCommented Nov 20, 2013 at 9:24
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Not exactly - fh_view_size is the number of items per page and I think it's only when displaying items (so not the ones returned from Promotions). The way the MaxItems property works in SmartTarget is restricting the total number of CPs to display across all returned Promotions. Commented Nov 20, 2013 at 9:27
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Also you cannot get Fredhopper to filter on the regions (it's a custom field). Anyway, as I said there might be reasons to bypass SmartTarget in some specific cases but I would first exhaust all over options. SmartTarget is essentially an integration with Fredhopper, so if you bypass it you're just making your own integration :) Commented Nov 20, 2013 at 9:33
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Perhaps I need to read up on REL and TCDL a little more - we're close to delivering a DD4T/MVC site where SmartTarget was installed and we went with querying FH directly -admittedly we weren't doing regions/promotions/campaigns more faceted content so just needed to get the content out.– NeilCommented Nov 20, 2013 at 9:41
You can output the TCDL tags yourself which the Deployer transforms to your site's target language or render the target language tags in your template directly.
answered Nov 19, 2013 at 19:31