Recommendations merchandizing!

• We now support recommendation merchandizing in the dashboard for alternative or complementary strategies!
  
• Our initial release here focuses on hiding specific items when requesting recommendations for another item, but these capabilities will expand in the future.
• Fundamentally, we are committed to algorithmic optimization of KPIs across search, browse, recommendations and the entire product suite. That said, we recognize that customers want to intervene if they see an opportunity to improve and want to and that some customers may not have as much behavioral data as others (though we are working here as well - see below!). 

Recommendations UX improvements

• Additional recommendation strategy preview support We expanded preview capabilities in the dashboard to include query and bestseller recommendation strategies. This leaves just filtered items strategy without dashboard preview support (look for this soon).
  
• Prevent recommendation pod deletion We have restricted the deletion of recommendation pods with usage to admin users.
• Improved warning on recommendation pod deletion We now check for requests in the last 7 days for recommendation pods and present a warning before deletion.
  
  

Performance

• Collections dashboard performance imporvements We improved performance of collections edit page for customers with larger catalogs by over 50%. This is the first of a few dashboard performance improvements for customers with larger catalogs.

API

• The REST batch items update endpoint now accepts items without the item_name parameter if id is provided.
• Hide range buckets We now permit hiding a particular range bucket from numeric range facet fields in the facet configuration API. This allows customers to just show facet selection options for 3+, 4+ and 5 star reviews, hiding 1+ and 2+ star filters.
• Field presence summary & searchability API We launched a searchability API, which allows requesting all fields associated with items in the catalog, configuring which of these should be searchable and how these should be searched (exact or fuzzy). A forthcoming release will provide 

Result Fixes

• Facet count consistency In very rare cases, selecting a facet to narrow the results could lead to an increased number of results as spell correction was applied more aggressively for the narrower result set. This is now avoided in all cases.
• Trailing spaces in facets Fixed an issue that could cause facet with trailing spaces uploaded in certain situations to be parsed incorrectly.

Display Fixes

• Fixed a UX display bug in date selector.
• Fixed facet range display in the facet configuration dashboard overflowing if there were too many options.
• Filter selections are now maintained while paginating in interact.
• Align icons in interface when item is not found in catalog.