UmbracoAzureSearch

UmbracoAzureSearch allows you to completely replace Examine from your Umbraco website and replace it with Azure Search.

Getting Started

The first thing required to get your UmbracoAzureSearch service up and running will be to create an Azure search service.

Steps to setting up an Azure Search instance

Configuring the API

Inside the ~/config/AzureSearch.config you will want to populate the SearchServiceName, the SearchServiceAdminApiKey (which you can find in your Azure Search instance, under Settings > Keys), and lastly the IndexName of which you have named your search index.

{
    "SearchServiceName" : "my-umbraco-search",
    "SearchServiceAdminApiKey" : "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
    "IndexName": "MyUmbracoIndex"
}

AzureSearchClient

The AzureSearchClient provides a fluent interface to allow you to build and execute your Azure Search queries against your newly defined index.

public class SearchController : RenderMvcController 
{
    private readonly IAzureSearchClient _search;
    
    public SearchController()
    {
        this._search = new AzureSearchClient(HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("/"));
    }
}

Content Search

public ISearchResult GetContent(string searchTerm)
{
    return this._search.Content().Term(searchTerm).Results();
}

Media Search

Media will also return an IAzureSearchClient so will allow you to use any of the following fluent methods for filtering.

public ISearchResult GetMedia()
{
    return this_.search.Media().Results();
}

Filter by DocumentType

Filter by a single DocumentType

public ISearchResult GetContent(string searchTerm)
{
    return this._search.Content().Term(searchTerm).DocumentType("newsArticle").Results();
}

Filter by multiple DocumentTypes

public ISearchResult GetContent(string searchTerm)
{
    return this._search.Content().Term(searchTerm).DocumentTypes(new { "newsArticle", "contentPage" }).Results();
}

Order Results

Order by a property alias

public ISearchResult GetContent(string searchTerm)
{
    return this._search.Content().Term(searchTerm).OrderBy("publicationDate").Results();
}

Pagination

Paginate results

public ISearchResult GetContent(string searchTerm, int page)
{
    return this._search.Content().Term(searchTerm).PageSize(10).Results(page);
}

Search Root

Define the base node from which all of your search queries originate.

public ISearchResult GetContent(string searchTerm)
{
    return this._search.Content().Term(searchTerm).SearchRoot(1).Results();
}

Filtering

Filtering allows overloads for string,int and bool to filter on a property value. Properties must include the IsFilterable: True flag within the index configuration.

Config:

{
    "Name":"published",
    "Type":"bool",
    "IsFilterable":"True"
},

Code:

public ISearchResult GetContent(string searchTerm)
{
    return this._search.Content().Term(searchTerm).Filter("published", true).Results();
}

Facets

Facets are configured from within the index configuration by assigning the IsFacetable: True flag on a property.

Config:

{
    "Name":"year",
    "Type":"string",
    "IsFacetable":"True"
},

Code:

public ISearchResult GetFacets()
{
    return this._search.Content().Facet("year").Results();
}

Searching on a Custom Property

In order to search on a custom property, you must ensure that the IsSearchable: True flag is set on the property. This will allow us to use the Contains() method.

Config:

{
    "Name":"title",
    "Type":"string",
    "IsSearchable":"True"
},

Code:

public ISearchResult GetContent(string searchTerm)
{
    return this._search.Content().Contains("title", searchTerm).Results();
}

Autocomplete Suggestions

In order to enable autocomplete functionality in Azure Search, you must first add a suggester to your index. The standard suggester will allow you to chose which of your indexed fields the autocomplete search will be based on.

"Suggesters": [
    {
        "Name": "sg",
        "SearchFields": [
            "Name",
            "title"
        ]
    }
]

After this is defined and your index is reconstructed, we can start autocomplete based on search terms.

public IEnumerable<string> Autocomplete(string searchTerm)
{
    IList<SuggestResult> result = this._searchService.Suggest(searchTerm, 10);
    return result.Select(x => x.Text).Distinct().ToList();
}