Integration methods

There are a number of options to choose from when it comes to integrating Sitecore Discover personalized experiences. Whether you are integrating Discover experiences in a website, or another channel such as a mobile app, the level of control needed over the front-end design or development resource constraints are key factors that can influence your choice of integration methods. Sitecore Discover provides the following integration methods:

  • The Discover JS SDK integration method

  • The Discover API integration method

Note

Sitecore has deprecated the following integration methods:

  • Hosted pages with Discover

  • Using Discover runtime JS

We recommend that you use the Discover JS SDK to integrate your website or the Discover API for a website or application integration.

Integration using Discover JS SDK for React

The Discover JS SDK for React provides front-end developers with a simple way to integrate applications built using the React framework with Discover. Used with the Discover UI Components package for React, you can rapidly build desired user interfaces with completely customizable widget templates and headless UI components.

Simply install them in your project to access their contents, and at compile time, the JS SDK is integrated into your React browser application.

This integration method using Discover JS SDK and UI Components for React:

  • Can integrate with your integrated development environment (IDE) through Node Package Manager (NPM).

  • Is designed specifically for React.

  • Requires minimal development work.

  • Rapidly builds your application using easy to them widget templates and UI components.

  • Provides total control over user-experience design.

  • Handles anonymous visitor tracking, page views, widget events (such as widget appear), and clicks.

Integration using Discover API

Sitecore Discover is a headless SaaS multitenant service. As such, Sitecore Discover exposes a thorough set of API endpoints to fully integrate all search, recommendation, and page experiences with your website, mobile app, or other back-end systems. This provides business users with full control over these experiences via the Customer Engagement Console (CEC) user interface.

The integration method using Discover REST APIs:

  • Can integrate with all digital touchpoints, including mobile apps, and your website.

  • Requires the most effort to set up.

  • Requires development.

  • Provides total control over the user experience design.

The Customer Engagement Console provides a robust set of tools for developers that lets you test and learn how to work with APIs.

Integration using Discover hosted pages

Note

Sitecore has deprecated hosting pages with Discover.

We recommend that you use the Discover JS SDK to integrate your website or the Discover API for a website or application integration.

The hosted page integration method applies to Product Listing Pages and/or Landing Pages. With this integration option, Sitecore initially creates pages that look exactly like the website pages within your domain and hosts them in Discover. The advantage of Discover-hosted pages is that you can subsequently create new pages as needed directly through the CEC. You do not have to integrate widget events as widget events are inherent to pages hosted in Discover.

The integration method using Discover-hosted pages:

  • Applies to Product Listing Pages and/or Landing Pages only.

  • Requires CDN configuration to redirect traffic from your site to the Discover-hosted pages.

  • Does not require development work.

  • Does not provide access to all onsite experiences.

  • Provides limited control over user experience design.

Integration using Discover runtime JavaScript

Note

Integration using Sitecore Discover runtime JS is deprecated.

We recommend that you use the Discover JS SDK to integrate your website or the Discover API for a website or application integration.

The Discover runtime JavaScript integration method is a simple way to integrate Discover personalization, where a Discover pre-built JavaScript-based widget loads on your pages when in focus.

The Discover runtime JavaScript integration method:

  • Is suitable for website integration.

  • Is the quickest implementation method.

  • Leverages Discover prebuilt JavaScript optimized for performance and ADA compliance.

  • Requires minimal integration effort, there is no development work required.

  • Provides no control over the user experience design.

To prepare for this integration method you must provide Sitecore with a mock-up of your website widgets look and feel. Sitecore then reproduces your custom widgets in Discover so that they look just like a native piece of your website.

The actual integration then consists in a very basic code change that you perform on your side, where you place the Discover beacon on the site head, and retrieve code snippets from the CEC, and add them to the correct location in the targeted pages source code.

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