Episerver Strategy container block

This topic describes the functionality and setup of the Episerver Strategy container block. This add-on lets editors and marketers configure strategies for Advance content recommendations directly from the Episerver CMS edit view. 

How it works

The block is provided with the EPiServer.Personalization.CMS.UI package, and uses the Advance API to retrieve content recommendations, based on existing strategies like most popular or most viewed content. Users can add one or more Strategy container blocks to one or more pages, select the desired content strategy to apply, and specify the number of suggested content items to display on the page. If a strategy is not selected manually, the default strategy in Advance is used.

Requirements

For the Strategy container block to work, the Advance API must receive input for tracking and data analysis in Episerver Profile Store.

The following is required:

• An Episerver Advance account.
• EPiServer.Tracking.PageView installed on the site. Configure using Page view tracking.
• To configure the tracking, see Using Tracking.Core API with Profile Store.

Configuring the block

See Setting up a Strategy block.

Note: Advance API removes recommendations for inactive content once a day. Content that is permanently deleted, moved to trash, or no one visited for a day will not appear in Recommendations. To avoid the missing number of recommendations, 5 more recommendations will replace invalid (deleted) contents.

Known Issue: Currently, Advance service is recommended by contentId. If a site has too many untranslated pages, the number of recommended pages might display fewer recommendations than specified, or no recommendations at all.

Last updated: May 22, 2019