Everything in the following blog post pertains to API Connect version 10.0.9.0+
Introduction
We took an in-depth look at the consumer experience when using the Developer Portal to identify areas we could help consumers on their journey of adopting APIs that are surfaced using API Connect. An area we identified was relations between subscribing to products; how can I indicate to the consumer that if they subscribed to Product X then they may also be interested in subscribing to Product Y?
This is where the new feature, Product Recommendations comes in. Using detailed data analysis techniques we are able to recommend subsequent products at the end of the subscription process or on the product view page. Recommendations will show based off subscriptions across the catalog, so if Person 1 was to subscribe their application to Product X and Product Y and Person 2 was to view the details of Product X, they would also see Product Y in the recommendations block and they could consider if it will be needed for their application too.
The recommendations are weighted and also observe all Visibility rules. Given the following scenarios, product display count of 2 and viewing Product A you would get the following outcomes:
- Product X
- Visibility - Authenticated
- Weight - 15
- Product Y
- Visibility - Consumer Org Group ACME
- Weight - 10
- Product Z
- Visibility - Public
- Weight - 5
- Product W
- Visibility - Public
- Weight - 2
When not logged - You will see Products Z & W recommended.
When logged in and not in the ACME Consumer Org - You will see Products X & Z recommended.
When logged in and in the ACME Consumer Org - You will see products X & Y recommended.
** Weight - Represents how many applications are subscribed to Product A as well as the Product in the numbered list.
Product Recommendations
In the v10.0 release of API Connect, Product recommendations are enabled out of the box, but in v10.0.8 this feature will need to be enabled if you want to make use of it. Logging in as admin and navigating to Configuration -> System -> IBM API Developer Portal you should see a new section titled Products with a subsection of Recommendations
Here you are able to turn on the new feature and also change how many recommendations you would like shown to the user. The default recommendation count is 3.
Viewing a Product if there are any recommendations for it, meaning if an application that has subscribed to it is also subscribed to at least one other API product, will result in a new block on the product page appearing like so
The end user will also see the same recommendations at the end of the subscription wizard, an example of that can be seen below.
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