Search suggestions define the information displayed to users when they view search results. You can use field values directly in a search suggestion or combine field values with expressions to modify the displayed value.

You must configure Search Suggestions in Studio Search Designer. You cannot configure them in Studio Web.

To configure Search Suggestions:

1.Select the Resource to open the Resource Configuration page.

2.Navigate to the Default Settings tab.

3.Click + beside Search Suggestion.

4.Select the field you want to configure the suggested search result for.

5.Enter the expression to define what is returned for the search result.

See Search Suggestion Expressions for more information and examples.

Search Suggestion Expressions

Expressions are enclosed in angle brackets (`< >`) and are always interpreted as expressions. There is no configuration option to enable or disable expression evaluation.

The following operators and expressions are supported within a search suggestion:

Examples

The following examples show how you can use expressions in search suggestions.

Replace Null Values

You can replace null field values with a value you define, such as an empty string or "N/A". The following patterns produce the same result:

<FIELD == null ? "N/A" : FIELD>

<FIELD ?: "N/A">

The Elvis operator (?:) returns the value on the left if it exists and is not null. Otherwise, it returns the value on the right.

For example:

<name ?: "Unknown">

This displays the value of name when it exists. If name is null, it displays Unknown.

It can be useful to replace null values with an empty string ("") to prevent the string null from appearing in search suggestions.

Combine Strings and Field Values

Use the + operator to combine text with field values. For example:

<"Hello " + name>

If the value of name is Clara, the resulting search suggestion is:

Hello Clara

Use Language-specific Replacement Values

You can use different replacement values for null or missing values in multilingual environments. This allows search suggestions to display replacement text appropriate to the user's language.

For example, you can define a localized replacement value instead of using the same fallback text for all languages.

Expression evaluation is always enabled. There is no configuration flag to allow or prevent the use of expressions in search suggestions.

Expression Limitations

The less-than character (`<`) cannot currently be used as literal text before another expression in the same search suggestion.

For example, the following pattern works when the less-than character occurs without a subsequent expression:

<OBJECT_NAME> is < 5m high

The resulting text is:

Main Street Station is < 5m high

However, if another expression occurs later in the pattern, the less-than character is interpreted as the beginning of that expression:

<OBJECT_NAME> is < 5m high and has id=<OBJECTID>

This can result in incomplete output, such as:

Main Street Station is

Avoid using a literal < character in a search suggestion before another expression.