Retail administration console

Note: This page is about the Retail console. If you manage your Recommendations AI projects using the Recommendations console, we recommend switching to the Retail console. To see documentation for only Recommendations AI and the Recommendations console, go to the How-to guides for Recommendations AI.

The Retail console enables you to manage Retail resources for both Recommendations AI and Retail Search. You can also monitor your Retail activity in a graphical user interface using the browser-based Google Cloud console.

This page provides a high-level overview of the console tools available.

Access the Retail console

If you have not already set up a Google Cloud project and enabled the Retail API, go through the setup steps in Before you begin.

If you have set up your project and authentication, you can go to console and see the Retail dashboard.

Go to the Dashboard

The dashboard displays suggested next steps if you're just beginning your project. When you are using Retail services, it displays an overview of the state of your resources as that information becomes available, such as:

• Catalog branches
• User events
• Models
• Serving configs
• Errors
• Analytics

Data importing and monitoring

You can use the Data page to import catalog and user event data from BigQuery or Cloud Storage to the Retail API.

On the Data page, you can also:

• Monitor import activity for integration errors.
• Preview your catalog data.
• Set your default catalog branch.
• View data quality metrics.
• View linked Merchant Center accounts.

Go to the Data page

Learn more:

• Importing catalog information
• Import historical user events
• Monitor and troubleshoot

Serving configuration creation and management

Serving configurations associate a model or set of controls that the Retail API uses to generate your search or recommendation results. Use the console to create, preview, and manage your serving configurations. These tools are available on the Serving Configs page.

Go to the Serving Configs page

You can also go to the Evaluate page to preview recommendations or search results for your serving configuration.

Go to the Evaluate page

Learn more:

• Create serving configurations
• Manage serving configurations

Model creation and management

The Retail API trains your recommendation models with the user event data you imported in order to create more relevant recommendations. You can create, view, and manage your models on the Models page.

Go to the Models page

Learn more:

• Create models
• Manage models

Control creation and management

Controls enable you to create rules that control how search results are served. On the Controls page, you can create and manage serving controls that you can apply to specific serving configurations, and manage site-wide controls that apply globally.

Go to the Controls page

Learn more:

• Create and manage controls

Monitor the Retail API

You can use the console to view information about traffic, latency, and errors from data integration and Retail API methods. You can view site-wide analytics for Recommendations AI and Retail Search based on metrics such as revenue and clicks. In addition, you can set up alerts to receive notifications when thresholds you specify, such as error ratios from the predict or search methods, are exceeded. These tools are available on the Monitoring & Analytics page.

Go to the Monitoring & Analytics page

Learn more:

• Set up alerts
• Monitor and troubleshoot