Configuring the order of suggested refinements

Refinements can be displayed using either the default order for the attributes, or the order that you specify per query.

The system-navigation_Sorting attribute in the attribute's PDR controls the default order of the available refinement values. system-navigation_Sorting can be set to these values:
  • record-count sorts refinement values in descending order, by the number of records available for each refinement value. This is the default.
  • lexical sorts refinement values in alphabetical or numeric order. For example, if the end user in the front-end application chooses the values Red (15 records), Green (25 records), and Blue (5 records), then if the sorting is lexical, the values are displayed in this order: Blue (5 records), Green (25 records) Red (15 records).

You configure the default order for the values of suggested refinements by sending the configuration request to the Oracle Endeca Server with the Configuration Web Service, or by using Integrator.

For information on how to change the value for the system-navigation_Sorting in the PDR, see Using the Configuration Web Service, or in the Oracle Endeca Server API Reference, see the section about the Configuration Web Service. For information on using Integrator for the same purpose, see the Oracle Endeca Information Discovery Integrator User's Guide.

You can also control the order of suggested refinements for each query. The query-time control overrides the order that is set globally for refinements in the PDR. For information, see Using query-time control of refinement ordering.