User interfaces

Enterprise Search provides tools to implement search experiences for your applications and organizations, including several user interfaces to manage those experiences.

Since version 7.14.0, Enterprise Search offers multiple management interfaces:

Use these management interfaces to customize search experiences for your users. Enterprise Search provides complete search experiences, along with the tools to build your own.

Beginning in version 7.14, Enterprise Search offers multiple management interfaces:

To prepare for Enterprise Search 8.0, begin using Enterprise Search in Kibana today. See Get started with Enterprise Search in Kibana.

However, if you’re already familiar with standalone Enterprise Search, you can continue using it to manage Enterprise Search until version 8.0.

You can use Enterprise Search in Kibana and standalone Enterprise Search within the same deployment. However, each user must log in to Kibana and standalone Enterprise Search separately.

Review the following sections to learn more about each management experience.

Enterprise Search is now available within Kibana, the standard management interface for your Elastic deployment.

You can use Enterprise Search in Kibana exclusively, or you can use Kibana and standalone Enterprise Search together within the same deployment. However, beginning in version 8.0, Kibana will be the exclusive management interface for Enterprise Search.

Enterprise Search in Kibana provides the following benefits over standalone Enterprise Search:

Kibana is available to all Elastic Cloud deployments. To set up Kibana for your self-managed deployment, see Get started with Enterprise Search in Kibana.

Within Kibana, choose Enterprise Search. Then choose App Search or Workplace Search.

Enterprise Search in Kibana:

App Search in Kibana:

Workplace Search in Kibana:

Standalone Enterprise Search is the traditional management experience for Enterprise Search. This interface will remain available through all 7.x releases of Enterprise Search.

However, this interface will be removed in Enterprise Search 8.0, after which Kibana will be the exclusive management interface for Enterprise Search. Therefore, you should begin using Enterprise Search in Kibana prior to the 8.0 release.

Standalone management interface for App Search:

Standalone management interface for Workplace Search:

Start using Enterprise Search in Kibana today. Use the following sections to get started:

Set up Enterprise Search in Kibana, including App Search and Workplace Search, with the following steps:

Enterprise Search

Step 1. In your config/enterprise-search.yml file, add kibana.external_url with your Kibana instance URL:

kibana.external_url: http://kibana-host:5601

Be sure to specify http:// or https:// per your Kibana instance URL.

See Configuration settings reference for a full list of configuration options in Enterprise Search.

Step 2. Restart Enterprise Search to pick up the configuration changes

Kibana

Step 1. In your config/kibana.yml file, set enterpriseSearch.host to the URL of your Enterprise Search instance:

enterpriseSearch.host: http://enterprise-search-host:3002

Be sure to specify http:// or https:// per your Enterprise Search instance URL.

See Configure Kibana for a full description of Kibana configuration options.

Step 2. If you’re using a custom SSL certificate for Enterprise Search, make sure that your Certificate Authorities and your certificate verification mode are added to your config/kibana.yml:

enterpriseSearch.ssl.verificationMode: certificate
enterpriseSearch.ssl.certificateAuthorities:
  - /path/to/your/ca.pem

See Configure Kibana to Trust Your SSL Certificate Authority for more information on configuring SSL in Kibana.

Step 3. Restart Kibana to pick up the configuration changes

You’re ready to use App Search and Workplace Search from Kibana!

Check the following list when troubleshooting Enterprise Search usage in Kibana:

Connecting content sources to Workplace Search can require OAuth setup for authenticating Workplace Search.

OAuth configuration includes defining the redirect URI for the authentication process when it succeeds. The redirect URIs required vary by which user interface you are using to manage Enterprise Search.

When using Enterprise Search in Kibana, use the following redirect URI, substituting <KIBANA_BASE_URL> with the base URL of your Kibana instance. This should correspond with the value of kibana.external_url in your enterprise-search.yml:

<KIBANA_BASE_URL>/app/enterprise_search/workplace_search/sources/added

See Configuring First-Party Content Sources for additional details on connecting content sources.

If you are using Kibana from a non default space, and kibana.external_url in enterprise-search.yml includes the space prefix in the URL:

See Spaces for more information on Kibana Spaces.

Enterprise Search provides different tools to create search experiences for both App Search and Workplace Search.

Depending on customization needs, App Search provides the following options for creating search experiences:

Workplace Search provides a powerful and modern web-based search experience. See Searcher’s Guide to Workplace Search for a summary of all its capabilities.

You can use private sources in the private dashboard area. This allows you to customize your searchable content.

You can also integrate Workplace Search into existing applications. This way, users will be able to access search results using their current tools, so there is no need for separate searching experiences.

See Building Custom Search Experiences to connect an existing enterprise application with Workplace Search.

You can use Search API and API clients to build custom search experiences on top of Workspace Search capabilities.