Introduction

If you want to make it easier for your customers to search for a product, use faceted search. It is a filter function that allows you to add more and more value in order to narrow down the range of products. Filters can be freely combined with each other to increasingly reduce the number of displayed proposals. Thanks to facet filtering, the customer can search for a product of a given colour, in a specific price range, made of a selected raw material. This filtering works on the basis of product attributes and features.

Configuration

To start faceted navigation in PrestaShop, select the Modules section in the left-hand menu in the administration panel and then the Modules Manager.

In the Modules tab, you are interested in the Faceted Search module. After searching for the module, select configure to start the configuration.

The configuration section allows you to define additional settings for the Faceted Search module.

• Show the number of matching products - shows the number of products meeting the selected assumptions. Selecting the option no hides this number.
• Show products from subcategories - shows or hides products from subcategories.
• Depth of the category filter (1 - default, 0 - no limitations) - defines the depth of the category filter.
• Use tax to filter the price - determines whether the tax should be included in the price or not.
• Use rounding for price filtering - it is used for rounding prices during filtering. Like all the above, you can disable this option.

Indexes and Caches

In order for the module to work properly, it is necessary to have up-to-date product data. So you should index the latest products, product attributes and their prices. Depending on the scope of activities, select the option index all missing prices, rebuild entire price index or build attribute and features index.

• The first tab index all missing prices adds only prices that have never been indexed before.
• The second one rebuild the entire price index creates a new index with all prices, regardless of their indexing history.
• The third build attribute index is to add all product attributes to the index.
• Clear cached data by Faceted Search

Remember that indexation is necessary after each change of any given product. Each change can be indexed manually or by using a cron server using the URL link generated in the module.

Filter Templates

The next step is to use filter templates. If you have already defined templates it is time to use them. Otherwise you have to define a new template by clicking +add new template.

On the new configuration page, name the filter you are creating and select the categories for which the filter should appear on the store's page. By moving the slider between the checkboxes yes and no you can decide which filter categories will be available on your store's website. For most of the created filters you can assign a display style: a checkbox, a drop-down list or an option button.