Getting started with Elastic Enterprise Search
editGetting started with Elastic Enterprise Search
editThis document helps you choose the right tools for any Enterprise Search use case. Prefer an example? See Website search quickstart or Website search tutorial.
Elastic Enterprise Search enables developers and teams to build search-powered applications using the Elastic search platform. Build search for ecommerce, customer support, workplace content, websites, or any other application using a curated collection of tools.
Many Enterprise Search tools operate directly on Elasticsearch indices, but others require App Search engines or Workplace Search content sources—index abstractions that enable additional features. Refer to Indices, engines, content sources to learn more about these data stores and their compatibility.
To get started with Enterprise Search, create an Elastic Cloud account or otherwise satisfy the shared prerequisites. Then choose your tools, and design your implementation:
Documents
editTools in this category help you sync and consolidate data from various data sources into Elasticsearch documents and indices.
For each original data source, use ingestion tools to extract data, transform the data into documents, and store those documents in Elasticsearch. You may need to complete this process only once, or you may need to integrate Elastic with other software to keep your Elasticsearch documents in sync with the data source.
Other tools allow to manage indices and manually create, update, and delete documents.
Review the following table to find the best tool for each data source.
Most of the following tools operate on indices. Keep this in mind when choosing your search tools. Remember that you can create an engine for each index, if desired.
| Tools | Description | Operates on |
|---|---|---|
Existing indices |
Use your existing Elasticsearch indices. Search using tools that operate directly on indices, or create an engine from an index to use engine-specific tools. |
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Extract and transform web content—HTML pages and files served over HTTP—into Elasticsearch documents. |
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Sync data from various sources directly to Elasticsearch indices. Manage native connectors in the Kibana UI. See Native connectors for the available data sources. |
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Workplace Search connectors |
Sync data from a variety of content services to documents within Elasticsearch. Manage connectors within Kibana. See content sources for the available services. (Connector packages require your own infrastructure.) |
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Deploy a connector that syncs data from any content service to documents within Elasticsearch. Manage the connector using the Kibana UI. (Requires your own infrastructure.) |
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Elasticsearch index APIs |
Manage Elasticsearch indices and documents using Elastic platform tools. Create, read, update, and delete documents manually or programatically, using APIs for HTTP or a variety of programming languages. |
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Manage ingest pipelines and processors that transform documents before indexing, such as binary content extraction and whitespace reduction. Or use ML inference pipelines to enrich documents with generated fields. See Ingest pipelines for more information. |
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Upload a structured data file to convert each record to an Elasticsearch document. Use this for testing, one-time imports, or manual export/import between systems. |
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Confirm imported documents and manage your Elasticsearch data in this general-purpose document UI. |
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Use these platform tools to integrate with a wide variety of data sources. Refer to the following resources for lists of available data sources: Elastic integrations, Logstash input plugins, and What are Beats?. |
Search
editUse tools in this category to search your documents or build search experiences for your customers, teams, or other audiences. Search using an existing UI, quickly generate a search UI, or integrate search into existing applications.
Most of the following tools operate on engines. Keep this in mind when choosing your document management tools. Remember that you can create an engine for each index, if desired.
From a single search UI, you can search multiple indices, multiple engines, or multiple content sources. To search multiple engines, create a meta engine. You can also combine documents from indices, engines, and content sources within the same search results. See Search across indices, engines, and content sources.
| Tools | Description | Operates on |
|---|---|---|
Use components to build a user interface to search your documents. Integrate a search experience into an existing application, or quickly build a search UI for testing and proof-of-concept use cases. Search UI connectors provide compatibility with Elasticsearch, App Search, and Workplace Search. |
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Use this App Search UI to generate a search experience powered by Search UI. Use the generated application in your browser, deploy to Netlify, or download the source code to run anywhere. |
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Search your engines and content sources using a programming language API. Integrate search experiences into your existing applications. A variety of languages are available. |
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Search your documents using an API optimized for content search. Benefit from default tuning, and customize your experience using the other tools in this table. |
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Aggregate fields and return facets along with your results. API reference. |
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Filter, group, or sort search results. Use these features to enable UI controls or implement custom searches. |
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Search API result fields |
Choose which fields appear in your results—per query or per engine. Further customize results with sanitized highlights and field size limits. |
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Search as your users type to return relevant query suggestions. Optionally combine suggested queries with suggested results to improve your search autocompletion. API reference. |
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Record clicks on search results, or send arbitrary data along with each query. Use these features to gain insights and implement advanced features like personalization. Tags API reference. |
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Elasticsearch |
Use the full power of the Elasticsearch |
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Elasticsearch search APIs |
Use these platform tools to search your documents and implement search experiences while operating directly on Elasticsearch indices. |
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Search and browse documents within Kibana. Use this UI for testing or internal searches where no additional search UI is required. |
Results
editUse the tools in this category to improve search relevance and optimize your search results. Most tools are available via UI and API.
All of the following tools operate on engines. Remember that you can create an engine for each index.
| Tools | Description | Operates on |
|---|---|---|
Choose which fields to search and the relative weight of each field within a document. |
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Boost a document’s score based on the values of specific fields. |
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Choose which fields appear within the search results. Further customize results with sanitized highlights and field size limits. |
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Use a simple numeric value to affect multiple aspects of a query, including analyzers, fuzziness, and term and phrase matching. (May require text subfields.) |
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Use these UIs and APIs to set default query parameters per engine. Manage the following parameters: search fields, boosts, results fields, and precision tuning. |
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Customize search results for specific queries. Promote and hide documents within the results. Manage curations manually, or receive automated suggestions, powered by adaptive relevance. Curations API reference. Adaptive relevance API reference. |
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Manage synonyms through a UI or API. API reference. |
Analytics
editTo further optimize your search experience, use the following tools to analyze the behavior of your users and the performance of your search results.
All of the following tools operate on engines. Remember that you can create an engine for each index.
| Tools | Description | Operates on |
|---|---|---|
Evalute search results' performance and gain valuable insights via UI or API. Analyze queries, clicks, counts, and tags. Clicks API reference. Tags guide. |