Connecting to the Search Service

To fully leverage the benefits of Search Service, we must first integrate SAP Commerce Cloud with it.

We'll explore the following steps to securely connect SAP Commerce Cloud to the Search Service:

1. Establish a trust relationship using SAP Cloud Identity Services. This step ensures secure authentication and authorization for the SAP Commerce Cloud instance to access the Search Service tenant.
2. Configure SAP Commerce Cloud in Backoffice to connect with the Search Service tenant. This set up establishes the Search Service as a search provider.

SAP Cloud Identity Services (Identity Authentication Service or IAS) is a cloud-based identity and access management solution. It verifies user and application identities, using secure credentials and predefined permission scopes. When connecting to the Search Service tenant, IAS ensures the SAP Commerce Cloud instance is authenticated and authorized, confirming its identity and granting necessary access permissions.

After the activation of the Search Service add-on, a Search Service tenant is provisioned and ready to be connected. A welcome email is sent to a designated contact person. This contact person must log in to the SAP Cloud Identity Services administration console to complete the initial IAS setup.

Let's watch the following video to see the detailed steps in action:

Summarizing the video, to establish trust within Cloud Identity Services, follow these steps:

1. Locate the prepared Commerce Cloud application.
2. Confirm the availability of necessary API permission groups:
   • Search Service: Enables read and write access for querying and indexing.
   • Search Service Query: Permits search query execution.
3. Create a dependent application for the Commerce Cloud application and assign the Search Service API permission groups to it.
4. Trigger the secret generation process, producing vital credentials like the token endpoint, client ID, client secret, and resource information needed for Backoffice configuration.
5. Edit the dependent application details and set its type to "Other SAP Cloud Solution".

With everything ready, we can now configure Backoffice to connect to the Search Service.

After establishing trust with IAS, configure SAP Commerce Cloud in Backoffice to connect with the Search Service tenant, allowing it to serve as a search provider.

Watch the following video to know the detailed steps:

As demonstrated in the video, follow these steps to connect SAP Commerce Cloud to the Search Service within Backoffice:

1. Create or edit a search provider configuration in Backoffice to include connection details.
2. Store the connection essentials in the Consumed Destination property.
3. Configure the Consumed Destination with the following:
   • URL of the Search Service tenant
   • OAuth credential containing Client ID, Client Secret, and OAuth URL
   • OAuth resource in the additional properties field
4. Establish most required values in the IAS setup step.
5. Refer to sample data from the initial SAP Commerce Cloud setup for guidance.

With the IAS setup complete and the Backoffice configuration in place, the SAP Commerce Cloud environment is now successfully connected to the Search Service tenant.

In this lesson, you have:

• Explored how secure trust is established using SAP Cloud Identity Services (IAS).
• Learned how SAP Commerce Cloud is configured in Backoffice to connect to the Search Service tenant as a search provider.

For more information on this lesson, refer to the onboarding guide for Search Service, which outlines the essential steps to connect SAP Commerce Cloud with Search Service.