Switch to the Retail console

This page explains the changes you'll see if you're switching from the Recommendations console to the Retail console.

The Retail Google Cloud console is publicly available as of January 20, 2022. If you use the Recommendations console, we recommend accessing your Retail projects from the Retail console.

You can use the Retail console to manage Retail resources for Recommendations and Retail Search.

We recommend using the new Retail console. All new features will be launched on the Retail console, not on the legacy console.

Switch your project to the Retail console

To use the Retail console with your Recommendations project:

  1. Go to the Retail console.

    Go to the Retail console

  2. Select your Recommendations project from the drop-down menu at the top of the page, if it is not already selected.

  3. Click Enable the Retail API.

  4. Click Get Started to view your project in the Retail console.

If you use only Recommendations, some features exclusive to Retail Search do not appear in the console because they are not required for Recommendations use.

Console changes

This section explains changes in functionality and terminology in the Retail console compared to the Recommendations console.

Serving configs

The Retail console introduces a Serving configs page, which replaces the Placements page available in the Recommendations console.

The Serving configs page shows a list of all serving configs available. The Products column shows whether each serving config was created for Recommendations or Retail Search. Serving configuration information is displayed on the following tabs:

  • Details: View information about this serving config and edit its price reranking and diversity settings.
  • Evaluate: Preview recommendation results from this serving configuration.
  • Analytics: See click-through rate, conversion rate, and recommender-engaged revenue metrics for this serving config.

Serving configurations are available as of Recommendations v2 and Retail Search v2alpha, using the Retail API.

The servingConfig resource is available in Retail API versions v2beta and v2alpha. You can use this resource to create, view, edit, and remove serving configurations.

If you have existing placements, or create new placements, the Retail API automatically creates a serving configuration associated with each placement. Creating a serving configuration does not create a corresponding placement.

Deleting a serving configuration deletes its corresponding placement, and deleting a placement deletes its corresponding serving configuration.

Serving configurations allow you to edit diversity and price reranking options and have them take effect in near real-time. With placements, diversity and pricing settings can only be changed from the recommendation model that the placement points to.

Placements are still supported, but using serving configurations instead is recommended.

For more information about using serving configurations, see About serving configs and Create serving configs.

Merchant Center linking

You can now sync Merchant Center catalogs continuously and automatically to the Retail API using the Retail console.

Evaluating prediction results

The Retail console adds an Evaluate page from which you can select a serving config to preview results.

To preview prediction or search results for a serving config, go to the Retail console Evaluate page and select a serving configuration to preview. See Recommendation preview for how to preview recommendation results from your serving config.

Like when previewing placements in the Recommendations console, in the Retail console you can still preview results from a serving configuration's Details page. The following table compares how to evaluate from the Details page in the Retail console compared to the Recommendations console.

Console Click path
Retail Serving configs page > serving config name > Evaluate tab
Recommendations Placements page > placement name > Predict results tab

Monitoring and Analytics

Information you could find in the Recommendation console Errors page is now displayed on the Retail console Monitoring page.

The information you could find on the Business Insights page is now displayed in the Retail console Analytics page.

API Metrics

The Monitoring page shows traffic, errors, and latency by API method graphs. For more information on how to see graph details, see Monitor API activity.

For additional API metrics graphs, click View API Metrics at the top of the page to see the APIs & Services Metrics page.

Use the table below to compare how to get to API metrics in the Retail console compared to the Recommendations console.

Console Click path
Retail Monitoring page
Click View API Metrics to see additional metrics on the APIs & Services Metrics page
Recommendations Errors page > View API Metrics > APIs & Services Metrics page

Site-wide metrics

Site-wide metrics are displayed on the Analytics page. When you select Recommendations on this page, you can see total revenue, recommender-engaged revenue, average order value (AOV), and recommender-engaged AOV for Recommendations. See Summary metrics for a definitions of these metrics.

Use the table below to compare how to get to site-wide metrics in the Retail console compared to the Recommendations console.

Console Click path
Retail Analytics page
Recommendations Business insights page

Serving config metrics

Serving configs metrics are displayed on the Serving configs page under the Analytics tab of each serving config's details page. This page shows an overview of click-through rate, conversion rate, and recommender- engaged revenue. See Configuration-specific metrics for definitions of these metrics.

For Recommendations serving configs, you can see total revenue, recommender-engaged revenue, average order value (AOV), and recommender-engaged AOV. Use the table below to compare how to get to serving configuration metrics in the Retail console compared to the Recommendations console.

Console Click path
Retail Serving configs page > serving config name > Analytics tab
Recommendations Placements page > placement name > Analytics tab

Controls

The Retail console introduces a Controls page. The controls feature is currently available only for users who have Retail Search enabled.

If you only use Recommendations, the Controls page won't show controls and won't provide the option to create a control.

Retail Search users can use this page to create and edit two types of controls:

  • Serving controls are condition-rule pairs that customize how serving configurations serve search results. For example, a boost/bury control affects search result ranking and order of search results when specified query terms are searched for.
  • Side-wide controls let Retail Search users manage product attribute and autocomplete settings globally across all serving configurations.

To learn more about how controls are used for Retail Search, see Create and manage controls.

Branches

Catalog branch selection is available in the Retail console. However, we recommend using only branch 0 (the initial default branch) if you are using Recommendations.

Branch switching with Recommendations can be slow and prevent Recommendations from providing the most up-to-date predictions.

Retail Search users can use catalog branches to test new data before making it live on their sites. To learn more about how catalog branching works for Retail Search, see Catalog branches.

Documentation changes

After you switch to the Retail console, we recommend that you exclusively use this Retail documentation at https://cloud.google.com/retail/docs.