Setting up federated search with the Federated Search API

What's my plan?

The Federated Search external content API is a REST API that lets you ingest records of your external content into the Zendesk search indexes. This method requires that your developers build and maintain a middleware layer to integrate the service or site that hosts the external content and the help center. To set up federated search without developer assistance, use the external content search crawler. See About help center federated search.

Note: If you set up your help centers before September 25, 2019, and you have custom themes, you need to modify your themes to display search results from multiple help centers.

Configure federated search using the external content API

Use the following process flow steps as a guide to setting up federated search in your help center using the external content API.

1. Build your own integration with the Zendesk REST API then ingest the content you want to show up in your search results. See the Federated Search API reference documentation.

2. Select the content that you want to include and exclude in help center search results. See Including external content in your help center search results.

3. Set up your help center theme for federated search.

   For external content to show up in search results in your help center search, you must have a theme that supports federated search results. To do this, use the latest version of the Copenhagen theme or replace the old {{help_center_filters}} and {{filters}} helpers with the new {{source_filters}} and {{type_filters}} helpers. See Search Results page in the templating reference docs and Add Federated Search to include external content in help center search in the help center templating cookbook.

4. If desired, configure Knowledge results to include external content in Knowledge searches. See Configuring Knowledge in the context panel.