How to configure Lycan to start pushing to Elasticsearch
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Data Flow

The Elasticsearch flow is one way, it will only ever receive data from Lycan. Once configured, the flow for property data getting to Elasticsearch is as follows:

  1. Property on Lycan receives an update via API request from a connected integration (such as a PMS)
  2. Lycan will then merge this update to any listings internally that meet its criteria.
  3. A changeset will be calculated to determine if any changes have been made.
    • If no changes have been made then Lycan will stop execution.
    • If changes are made, Lycan will add the property schema to the Elasticsearch batch queue.
  5. Periodically, the batch queue will be flushed to update the properties on the configured Elasticsearch instance.

Schema Changes

You can view the Elasticsearch mapping schema here:

https://github.com/aptenex/lycan-elasticsearch-config/blob/master/src/property-mapping.json

These are changes you need to be aware of when querying data and returning it the user.

In any object where description contains a locale => description object it will be converted into an array of description objects instead. Eg:

{
    "description": {
      "en": {
        "locale": "en", 
        "title": "Example", 
        "content": "content 123"
      }
    }
}

to

{
  "description": [
    {
      "locale": "en", 
      "title": "Example", 
      "content": "content 123"
    }
  ]
}

Configuring Lycan

Lycan stores two different pieces of data about Elasticsearch, it’s overall instance details (the host) and each index.

Configuring an ES Host

We will setup the host instance for you on Lycan, get in touch with your integration manager.

Configuring an index

Each Elasticsearch index will be attached to a channel connection, if you are pushing to eg. HomeAway, Airbnb and a custom website then you will only need to configure an index on the custom website.

Adding Elasticsearch to a channel connection
Once you have added the host, a new index is automatically created with the correct mapping for Lycans property schema
Adding Elasticsearch to a channel connection success
An index is automatically generated with a unique identifier as a suffix

Pushing data to ES

On the Elasticsearch tab now click “Push All Properties” to to populate ES with the property documents. After that has completed you’ll be able to query ES directly using their RESTful API interface.

Tags: admin