Quickstart

Create an account

Open Create your account and enter your email, a password of at least 10 characters and your company name. You start on the Free plan, and no card is needed.

Registration takes an email, a password and a company name

Registering sets up three things for you:

• an organization named after your company, with you as its owner,
• a project called Default,
• the Free plan.

Zaproo then sends a verification email. Open the link in it within 24 hours. You can do everything below before that, except create API keys in the last step. See Verify your email.

Open your project

The cabinet opens on your organization's Projects page. Click the Default card.

Each project card shows its indices and documents

One project can hold the search for one shop. Many teams add a second project for staging, so that test keys can never touch live data. See Projects.

Create an index

An index holds one catalog in one language. Open Indices in the project menu and click New index. Enter a name, for example products, pick the language your product texts are written in and click Create index.

The language decides how words are matched, so pick the language of your product texts

The language sets how words are matched. With English, for example, a search for "boxes" also finds "box". You can change the language later, but that rebuilds the index. See Indices and languages.

The new index opens on its Overview. The Setup list there shows the four steps that follow, and ticks each one off when it is done.

The Setup checklist on the index overview tracks the next steps

Upload your products

Open Documents. Drop a .json file on Upload documents, or click the area to pick a file.

Drop a JSON file on the upload area

The file holds a JSON array of products. Each product needs an id; any other fields are up to you:

[
  { "id": "tape-48", "title": "Brown packaging tape 48mm", "color": "Brown", "price": 1.86, "categories": ["Tapes"] },
  { "id": "box-300", "title": "Cardboard box 300x200x200mm", "color": "Brown", "price": 0.32, "categories": ["Boxes"] }
]

The cabinet sends large files in batches and shows a progress row for each batch. A product becomes searchable as soon as its batch is done. If a batch fails, the row lists the products at fault, and you can upload the same file again safely. See Documents and tasks.

Check the fields

Open Fields & mapping. The first upload adds every field it finds and guesses its type. Each field's badges show what the field can be used for.

Each field shows its type and what it may be used for

Click Edit on a field to change what it does:

• Searchable for text that shoppers type, such as the title and description.
• Filterable and Facetable for the filters next to the results, such as color, category and price.
• Sortable for sort orders, such as price.

Click Apply to keep the change, then Save mapping when you are done. Some changes need a rebuild of the index, and the page tells you when they do. See Mapping and fields.

Create a search profile

A search profile decides how one search box searches: which fields count most, which facets show and how results can be sorted. Open Search profiles and click New profile.

The preview on the right shows how the draft settings change the results

1. Under Basics, name the profile after where it is used, for example Storefront.
2. Under Search fields, add the fields to search and give the product title the highest weight.
3. Under Facets and Sorting, pick the filters and the sort orders your shop shows.
4. Type a query in the preview to see the results, then click Save profile.

The profile list shows each profile's key under its name. Your storefront sends searches to this key, and the key never changes.

The profile key sits under the profile name

Every setting is explained in Search profiles.

Try a search

Open Playground, pick the profile and type what a shopper would type. You see the same results, facets and counts your storefront will get.

The Playground searches with a profile, as your storefront will

If a product you expect is missing, check that its field is Searchable and listed in the profile's search fields.

Create an API key for your site

Your storefront needs an API key to search. Open API keys in the project menu and click New key.

A public key for the browser, a secret key for your servers

• For search in the shopper's browser, pick Public key. Under Allowed origins, enter your shop's domain, for example shop.example.com. A public key can only search and suggest, and only from the domains you list, so it is safe in frontend code.
• For search from your shop's server, or for a catalog import, pick Secret key. Keep it on the server.

Click Create key. The full key is shown only once, so copy it into your code or secret store before you close the dialog. Creating keys needs a verified email and the owner or admin role. See API keys.