Tuning and sorting responses

You can modify the effect of a field or attribute on the search relevance through relevance tuning. You can also sort the search results by a certain attribute or field.

Tuning responses

You can modify the effect of a field or attribute on the search relevance through relevance tuning. To quickly test relevance tuning, use the Query API to pass in tuning configurations in the query. Then you can see the different search results that you get from different configurations. Relevance tuning at the query level is not supported in the console. You can also tune fields or attributes that are of the type StringList at the index level only. For more information, see Tuning search relevance.

By default, query responses are sorted by the relevance score that Amazon Kendra determines for each result in the response.

You can tune results for any built-in or custom attribute/field of the following types:

• Date value

• Long value

• String value

You can't sort attributes of the following type:

• String list values

Rank and tune document results (AWS SDK)

Set the Searchable parameter to true to boost the document metadata configuration.

To tune an attribute in a query, set the DocumentRelevanceOverrideConfigurations parameter of the Query API and specify the name of the attribute to tune.

The following JSON example shows a DocumentRelevanceOverrideConfigurations object that overrides the tuning for the attribute called "department" in the index.

"DocumentRelevanceOverrideConfigurations" : [
    "Name": "department",
    "Relevance": {
        "Importance": 1,
        "ValueImportanceMap": {
            "IT": 3,
            "HR": 7
        }
    }
]

Sorting responses

Amazon Kendra uses the sorting attribute or field as part of the criteria for the documents returned by the query. For example, the results returned by a query sorted by "_created_at" might not contain the same results as a query sorted by "_version".

By default, query responses are sorted by the relevance score that Amazon Kendra determines for each result in the response. To change the sort order, make a document attribute sortable and then configure Amazon Kendra to use that attribute to sort responses.

You can sort results on any built-in or custom attribute/field of the following types:

• Date value

• Long value

• String value

You can't sort attributes of the following type:

• String list values

You can sort on one or more document attributes in each query. Queries return 100 results. If there are fewer than 100 documents with the sorting attribute set, documents without a value for the sorting attribute are returned at the end of the results, sorted by relevance to the query.

To sort document results (AWS SDK)

1. To use the UpdateIndex API to make an attribute sortable, set the Sortable parameter to true. The following JSON example uses DocumentMetadataConfigurationUpdates to add an attribute called "Department" to the index and make it sortable.

   "DocumentMetadataConfigurationUpdates": [
      {
          "Name": "Department",
          "Type": "STRING_VALUE",
          "Search": {
              "Sortable": "true"
          }
      }
   ]

2. To use one sortable attribute in a query, set the SortingConfiguration parameter of the Query API. Specify the name of the attribute to sort and whether to sort the response in ascending or descending order.

   The following JSON example shows the SortingConfiguration parameter that you use to sort the results of a query by the "Department" attribute in ascending order.

      "SortingConfiguration": { 
         "DocumentAttributeKey": "Department",
         "SortOrder": "ASC"
      }
   

3. To use more than one sortable attribute in a query, set the SortingConfigurations parameter of the Query API. You can set upto 3 fields that Amazon Kendra should sort the results on. You can also specify whether the results should be sorted in ascending or descending order. The sort field quota can be increased.

   If you don't provide a sorting configuration, the results are sorted by the relevance that Amazon Kendra determines for the result. In the case of ties in sorting the results, the results are sorted by relevance.

   The following JSON example shows the SortingConfigurations parameter that you use to sort the results of a query by the attributes "Name" and "Price" in ascending order.

   "CollapseConfiguration" : {
       "DocumentAttributeKey": "Name",
       "SortingConfigurations": [
           { 
               "DocumentAttributeKey": "Price",
               "SortOrder": "ASC"
           }
       ],
       "MissingAttributeKeyStrategy": "IGNORE"
   }

To sort document results (console)

Note

Multi-attribute sort isn't currently supported by the AWS Management Console.

1. To make an attribute sortable in the console, choose Sortable in the attribute definition. You can make an attribute sortable when you create the attribute, or you can modify it later.

2. To sort a query response in the console, choose the attribute to sort the response from the Sort menu. Only attributes that were marked sortable during datasource configuration appear in the list.