Elastic Search For Invision Community?

[expeditedshipper]

We want to create an elastic search so when a user searches using the online search bar, it'll also search our Atlassian knowledge base and our Invision Community instance. Is that possible?

[Daniel F]

That's not possible out of the box, but you could use Enterprise Search or probably also Elastic Stack to accomplish this.

[expeditedshipper]

So this is supported with Invision Community?

[bfarber]

Within Invision Community directly, we support integration with ElasticSearch, however it is only going to search for the contents within the Elastic Search index that Invision Community creates - we aren't going to have any knowledge of any other external databases or indexes you wish to search.

In short, no, this isn't going to be a built in capability, however you could accomplish it with a custom developed plugin.

[expeditedshipper]

Would the plugin listed above work for what I want to accomplish?

[Daniel F]

That's not a plugin. My link was to https://www.elastic.co/de/products/enterprise-search which is a separate elastic product and which connects more then one source like your community and atlassian stuff 

[expeditedshipper]

Right. But can we have that search you provided with Atlassian?

[expeditedshipper]

Can I set up Elasticsearch with Invision Community using a plugin? It requires we set up the javascript snippet on each page, but I don't know how I'd do that on our invision community instance.

Here's the setup (pretty simple): https://swiftype.com/documentation/site-search/crawler-quick-start

[bfarber]

We support integration with Elasticsearch out of the box - you don't need to install any special plugins or anything. Just go to the AdminCP > System > Search and configure Elasticsearch appropriately.

[expeditedshipper]

On ElasticSearch's set up documentation, they don't show where I'd get a server to input into the elasticsearch field in the backend of invision community...Do you have a tutorial on setting this up?

[Martin A.]

Install it on your server. https://www.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch

Or you can get Elasticsearch via Elastic Cloud. This gives you a free 14 day trial, which allows you to see if it's something you need. https://www.elastic.co/products/elasticsearch/service/pricing

Guides on how to install and setup this is not IPS' responsibility. They only give you the option to integrate with it, and that's where their guide ends. 

[expeditedshipper]

Yeah, just confusing to set up...they don't have great support documentation on it.

[Martin A.]

https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/6.8/deb.html

Pretty straight forward if you ask me. Do note that you have to stick to the 6.8 branch. Invision Community is not compatible with v7.x yet.,

[expeditedshipper]

I'm not very technical...so this seems complex to me.

For example, I don't see where we can add the atlassian website to this as well...

[bfarber]

You can't. What you are after is a custom setup, not something out of the box. See my previous response where I've already explained that part. 🙂 

On 8/15/2019 at 6:41 PM, bfarber said:

Within Invision Community directly, we support integration with ElasticSearch, however it is only going to search for the contents within the Elastic Search index that Invision Community creates - we aren't going to have any knowledge of any other external databases or indexes you wish to search.

In short, no, this isn't going to be a built in capability, however you could accomplish it with a custom developed plugin.

 

I will try to rephrase this again to be clear - Invision Community software has the ability to store its searchable content within Elasticsearch, and then use Elasticsearch to search through that content. This will only include content within Invision Community. If you need to merge our content with something else (such as an Atlassian Knowledge Base) you will need to do something custom, and if setting up Elasticsearch is proving to be fairly technical for you, then attempting to do something custom in this arena is likely going to be very technical, and you are likely going to require the assistance of a developer.

Unfortunately, frankly, what you are indicating you want to do simply isn't something that can be done "out of the box". You need some development help to accomplish it. If you aren't a developer, you will probably need to hire one (just like when I as a developer need my car fixed, I typically have to hire a mechanic to do that).

[expeditedshipper]

On 8/29/2019 at 9:54 AM, bfarber said:

You can't. What you are after is a custom setup, not something out of the box. See my previous response where I've already explained that part. 🙂 

 

I will try to rephrase this again to be clear - Invision Community software has the ability to store its searchable content within Elasticsearch, and then use Elasticsearch to search through that content. This will only include content within Invision Community. If you need to merge our content with something else (such as an Atlassian Knowledge Base) you will need to do something custom, and if setting up Elasticsearch is proving to be fairly technical for you, then attempting to do something custom in this arena is likely going to be very technical, and you are likely going to require the assistance of a developer.

Unfortunately, frankly, what you are indicating you want to do simply isn't something that can be done "out of the box". You need some development help to accomplish it. If you aren't a developer, you will probably need to hire one (just like when I as a developer need my car fixed, I typically have to hire a mechanic to do that).

Understood. Thanks for the clarity.

 

What's the benefit of using Elastic Search then? Is there a better option out there? I heard this was the best option for what our needs are...

[bfarber]

Elasticsearch can perform searches through millions of records far quicker than stock MySQL, and it supports functionality that cannot really be replicated with MySQL (such as word stemming). For that reason, you can obtain better results typically with Elasticsearch, but typically you would only go this route once your site reaches a certain size.

[expeditedshipper]

Ah, understood.

Do you have a recommendation as far as a developer to get the custom Elastic Search script we need set up?

[bfarber]

https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/forum/506-customization-requests/

https://invisioncommunity.com/third-party/providers/

[expeditedshipper]

Thank you.

On 8/28/2019 at 2:14 PM, Martin A. said:

https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/6.8/deb.html

Pretty straight forward if you ask me. Do note that you have to stick to the 6.8 branch. Invision Community is not compatible with v7.x yet.,

I just realized that's for the server install. We can use this with the cloud install, correct?

[Joel R]

It may also be good for you to check the Elastic.co community to see if there are available developers. 

You'll probably have an easier time finding elastic stack devs there.  

[Martin A.]

20 hours ago, expeditedshipper said:

Thank you.

I just realized that's for the server install. We can use this with the cloud install, correct?

Yes, you can use any cloud hosted instances of Elastic.

20 hours ago, Joel R said:

It may also be good for you to check the Elastic.co community to see if there are available developers. 

You'll probably have an easier time finding elastic stack devs there.  

If his plans are to make the result visible withing the suite, he's going to need a dev familiar with that more than he needs an Elastic dev. 

[expeditedshipper]

2 hours ago, Martin A. said:

If his plans are to make the result visible withing the suite, he's going to need a dev familiar with that more than he needs an Elastic dev. 

Can you expand on this?

I've reached out a few people from the resources you recommended, but no one seems to be available.