In Employee Center, AIS Topic Search widget returns no results or unexpected results - Support and Troubleshooting

In Employee Center, AIS Topic Search widget returns no results or unexpected results Summary .ns-kb-css-body-editor-container { p { font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--text-primary, #000000); } span { font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--text-primary, #000000); } h2 { font-size: 24pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--text-primary, black); } h3 { font-size: 18pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--text-primary, black); } h4 { font-size: 14pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--text-primary, black); } a { font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--link-primary, #00718F); } a:hover { font-size: 12pt; color: var(--now-color--link-primary, #024F69); } a:target { font-size: 12pt; color: var(--now-color--link-primary, #032D42); } a:visited { font-size: 12pt; color: var(--now-color--link-primary, #00718f); } ul { font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato; } li { font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato; } img { display: ; max-width: ; width: ; height: ; } } This KB article outlines the investigation of the issue with the AIS Topic Search widget.

Table of Contents What is "AIS Topic Search" Prerequisite for using "AIS Topic Search" Why does the widget return no results or unexpected results and how to fix it Most Possible Cause: Improper Topic Path was populated for the Topic Possible Cause 2: Default language user preference set to other language than English Possible Cause 3: Custom Search Source Filter in the Topic Content widget option What is "AIS Topic Search" The "AIS Topic Search" is a widget introduced since the Utah release. It is embedded in the "Topic Content" widget of the Employee Center. It provides a search input box for users to search resources (i.e. connected content) of the Topic within the Topic page via AI Search with autocomplete functionality. The following screenshot shows how it works in the Employee Center.

Prerequisite for using "AIS Topic Search" To use the "AIS Topic Search", the following criteria must be fulfilled

The instance must be on Utah or above The AI Search must be enabled in the Employee Center The system property " taxonomy.aisearch.enabled.utah " must be true in value If any one of the above is not fulfilled, the AIS Topic Search widget is not visible in the Topic Content widget.

Why does the widget return no results or unexpected results and how to fix it In some scenarios, the "AIS Topic Search" might return no results or unexpected results. The following screenshot illustrates the issue:-

This issue can happen on any Taxonomy topic. The search might work on a parent topic but not the child and vice versa. It might also work in English but not in another language.

Most Possible Cause: Improper Topic Path was populated for the Topic Topic Path contains the hierarchy information of a Taxonomy Topic. For example, if a "Computer" Topic is a child of the "Hardware" Topic and the "Hardware"'s parent is a root Topic "Technology services", then its Topic Path is "Technology services / Hardware / Computers".

After connecting a connected item (e.g. KB article or catalog item) to a Taxonomy Topic, it will be indexed by the AI Search if AI Search is enabled in the Employee Center. The indexing engine looks into the Topic Path of the Topic that connected item is connected to; breaks it down and then ingests the Topics to the item. For the same example above, if a catalog item "Apple MacBook Pro 15" is connected to the "Computers" topic, it will be indexed with 3 topics, "Technology services", "Hardware" and "Computers" and it is expected to be shown in the search result on these 3 topic pages

When a search is performed in the AIS Topic Search, the widget makes a GraphQL Query to AI Search with a facet filter of the Topic that the user is currently on. For example, if a search of "Apple" is performed on the "Computers" topic page, a "Computers" facet filter will be passed to the AI Search in the GraphQL Query. AI Search will search for "Apple" with the facet filter.

If the Topic Path is modified for some reason after AI Search indexing and the expected Topic is not matched between the connected item and the facet filter, the AI Search returns no result.

The following screenshot illustrates the issue of the Topic Path with the above example. For the "Computers" topic, the expected Topic Path is "Technology services / Hardware / Computers" but it was populated with "Technology services / Hardware". The "Computers" is missing in the path and thus the AIS Topic Search return no results when searching for "Apple" on "Computers" topic page.

Assuming the Topic Path of its parent topic "Hardware" is proper. When searching for the same keyword "Apple" in the "Hardware" topic page, the "Hardware" facet filter is passed to the AI Search. Because it can be matched with the catalog item indexed topics, the catalog item is shown properly on the parent "Hardware" topic page. The following screenshot illustrates the scenario.

The same can happen in other languages. If the Topic path is not translated for some reason, then searching in non-English topic pages will not work.

In gist, the Topic Path must contain the Topic that the search is performed on and the Topic must be matched with the indexed topic of the connected items.

Why the Topic Path was incorrectly populated? It is not easy to trace the cause of why the Topic Path was incorrectly populated. The Topic Path field is not editable and is populated by the OOB Business Rule " Topic - generate full path ". It is also hidden in the Form and the List view by default and most customers are not even aware of the existence of this field. That makes it more difficult to trace the cause as we don't know when was the field populated with the unexpected value.

A possible cause is " PRB1733229 - Topic Path of subtopics are incorrectly generated when the name of parent topic is translated ". It documented the issue when the name of the Parent Topic is translated into another language, the Topic Path of English subtopics is incorrectly generated. This PRB was then marked as a duplicate of " PRB1710423 - BR Topic - generate full path does not work correctly as async ".

PRB1710423 is currently marked as "Won't fix" as it is tracked by EPIC1083974 .

How to fix Step 1: Fix the Topic Path

As the Topic Path is populated by the Business Rule " Topic - generate full path ". The path can be rectified by running the same script of the Business Rule. If you look into the Business Rule, any change of the Topic name or its parent could trigger the regeneration of topic path of the Topic and its child Topics. We need the Sys IDs of the affected Topics or their common parent / grandparent Topic which is in the highest level to run the script.

Once you identfiy the Sys IDs, you can run the same script of the Business Rule to regenerate the Topic path. The following is a background script that run the script for Sys IDs defined in the variable topics .

It is important to make sure the Topic Path is properly generated. You might run into PRB1710423 in some scenarios. You have to verify the translated Topic Path as well if the Topic is translated to other languages

Step 3 (Optional) - Reindex the AI Search Indexed Source

Depending on which Topics were ingested with the connected content when the content was previously indexed by AI Search, it might be required to reindex the connected content after rectifying the Topic Path to ensure they are indexed with the expected Topics. It can be done by:

Open the Search Application from the Employee Center record Open the Search Profile from the Search Application From the Search Source related list, identify the source of the connected item that is not searchable from AIS Topic Search. It can be just KB article or catalog item. If the issue happens on both KB article or catalog item, it is required to reindex both Search Source Open the Search Source record, and then the Indexed Source On the top right-hand corner, press "Index All Tables" The Indexed Source will then be queued for indexing. You can monitor progress by refreshing this page. Once the Ingestion State is "indexed", the process is complete Possible Cause 2: Default language user preference set to other language than English There is a product defect PRB1823459. When the instance has other languages installed and the default language user preference is set to another language than English (e.g. A sys_user_preference record user.language with system=true, user=empty and value="de"), it makes the AIS index the connected item with the Topic path of that translation (i.e. "de") even for the document in English. Since the indexing of the Topic path of those documents is incorrect, they cannot be returned when the widget passes the English facet filter to the AIS.

PRB1823459 is fixed in Xanadu Patch 8 Hot Fix 3, Xanadu Patch 9, Yokohama Patch 4 and Zurich. If the customer is not able to upgrade the instance, please consider to apply the workaround below.

Workaround The customer might consider removing the default non-English user language preference and then reindexing the AIS indexed source. This should let the AIS index the document properly and then resolve the issue. The downside is that every user's default language will be English, and they have to change it once in their preference.

Possible Cause 3: Custom Search Source Filter in the Topic Content widget option We ship Navigation Tab (sys_search_filter) records for catalogs and knowledge in OOB, called ESC Portal Catalogs (aed3c51253671010069addeeff7b121b) and ESC Portal Knowledge Bases (a6d3c51253671010069addeeff7b1217) respectively. These Search Sources Filter are defined in the instance option of the Topic Content widget. The following screenshot shows the instance option in the OOB instance.

According to the documentation , AI Search automatically defines Navigation Tabs for search application configurations and the customer should not be able to create or delete them. In case the customer modifies them or replaces them with Navigation Tabs, they might run into issues on the AIS Topic Search if the tabs are not defined in the Topic Content instance option.

How to fix There are two options:

Reverting everything to OOB, including the Navigation Tabs, instance option and the associate the original AI Search Search Sources "ESC Portal Catalogs" and "ESC Portal Knowledge Bases" back to the Employee Center Search Application. Modify the instance option of the Topic Content widget to include the custom Navigation Tabs Release .ns-kb-css-body-editor-container { p { font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--text-primary, #000000); } span { font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--text-primary, #000000); } h2 { font-size: 24pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--text-primary, black); } h3 { font-size: 18pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--text-primary, black); } h4 { font-size: 14pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--text-primary, black); } a { font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--link-primary, #00718F); } a:hover { font-size: 12pt; color: var(--now-color--link-primary, #024F69); } a:target { font-size: 12pt; color: var(--now-color--link-primary, #032D42); } a:visited { font-size: 12pt; color: var(--now-color--link-primary, #00718f); } ul { font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato; } li { font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato; } img { display: ; max-width: ; width: ; height: ; } } Employee Center in Utah or above

Related Links .ns-kb-css-body-editor-container { p { font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--text-primary, #000000); } span { font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--text-primary, #000000); } h2 { font-size: 24pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--text-primary, black); } h3 { font-size: 18pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--text-primary, black); } h4 { font-size: 14pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--text-primary, black); } a { font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato; color: var(--now-color--link-primary, #00718F); } a:hover { font-size: 12pt; color: var(--now-color--link-primary, #024F69); } a:target { font-size: 12pt; color: var(--now-color--link-primary, #032D42); } a:visited { font-size: 12pt; color: var(--now-color--link-primary, #00718f); } ul { font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato; } li { font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato; } img { display: ; max-width: ; width: ; height: ; } } Configure source facet buckets in an AI Search application configuration