I started to write about how the new Advanced Train works and it occurred that I really need to describe the Standard Train first.
In Standard mode we ask you for some phrases and urls that describe the topic your swicki is about. Using this information we use sources that give the best base results for swickis accross the full spectrum of swickis and then we apply the community learning passively to the results. The training information that you enter determines whether one of these sources is included.
In Advanced mode we have exposed control over the sources queried in a granular way so that you can decide to which sources to use for your swicki even to the extent of using your own search feed. You can decide on the order these query results appear and the relative number of results from each source. All the good stuff; the community learning and promoted results still apply.
Training - Advanced Mode
You can switch your swicki into advanced training mode. To do this click the Advanced radio button, a new button “advanced mode” appears, click this and switch into advanced mode.
There are 2 scenarios:
a) You had no existing configuration - this might be a new swicki.
b) You had already configured the swicki - you are changing your existing swicki into advanced mode.
Scenario A
You will see Sources 1-5 listed with dropdowns on the page. Each source represents a slot on the results page, with Source 1 being at the top etc. The selection in the dropdown is the source for results for the slot. You can order the sources by selecting from the dropdowns and you can adjust the relative number of results for each source.
For example in Source 1 you might select Web - My Site and Source 2, Web - Raw. When you select a source a form with some fields that flesh out the source is loaded. Each source has some specific fields to fill so you need to provide this information. You also need to adjust the relative mix of results by tweaking the number. When you load this page for a new swicki the number of results from each source will default to 5. You can repeat the same source or source type up to 5 times. So you could select 5 Web - My Site, enter 5 different URLs and just present results from these 5 sites. We will also index them for you!
Scenario B
You have an existing swicki and you want to switch to advanced mode. When you do this we map your standard train settings across to the new mode. (Please note the configuration will map from standard to advanced but not from advanced to standard.) If you have My Site and Web checked, and you have entered a keyword on the train page - you will see this mapped to Web - My Site, Web - Filtered (with the keywords entered) Web - Raw. There will be 8, 6 and 6 number of results for each respectively.
Things you can do.
Custom sources - if you have an A9 OpenSearch compliant source you can use this to power your swicki results. You can see a good list of these in the OpenSearch Directory. (http://opensearch.a9.com/-/search/moreColumns.jsp ).
We need the following minimal fields in the URL: {searchTerm}, {count} and either {startPage} or {startIndex}.
Re-order custom sources - having saved these sources - you can re-order them simply by selecting the source from the dropdown. For example - I have selected
a) Source 1 = Web - My Site - with 2 results
b) Source 2 = Web - Raw - with 18 results
For example: I want to insert an A9 custom source so that it appears 2nd in the list with 6 results. I select Source 3 = Web - Raw and adjust the number of results from 18 down to 12 (18-6=12), then I select Source 2 = Custom, enter 6 in the number of results and fill in the URL details. Now my list looks like this.
a) Source 1 = Web - My Site - with 2 results
b) Source 2 = Custom - with 6 results
c) Source 3 = Web - Raw - with 12 results