real time search field

[Anonymous]

We are remapping our fields in order to increase data quality. Part of this process involves us either updating, merging, retiring and creating new fields. One of the fields that we came into realization that we need to update is the " product of preference"  field. Because we have too many products to list in a pick-list type of field, we are trying to understand if we can implement a smart search field, that would pull up information from a list of products we could add to Marketo as the user types.

For those who are not familiar, Real-Time Search was a feature of Google Search provided by Google in which search results also sometimes included real-time information from sources such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and news websites. As we are not trying to pull information from the Web, the mechanics are a little different, but the idea is the same.

Have anyone implemented that on Marketo before?

[SanfordWhiteman]

Of course any form input can be turned into a search box against a remote service. The question is merely how that remote service is queried. Marketo  *itself* doesn't have the ability to look up entries in a separate database and return only matched content. How many entries are you really talking about, though? Just a few thousand?

[Anonymous]

Hi Sanford,

I believe we're talking about a little less the thousand products.

Do you recommend something in particular?

Thanks,

[SanfordWhiteman]

1000 is nothin'.

You can just put that in a JavaScript array and tie the input to that. I'll put up a demo later today as I'm out of office now.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Check out this example with using the Awesomeplete library:

     MktoForms2 :: Awesomplete Products

Obviously there are thousands of similarlibraries out there with different looks-and-feels, but they all use the same approach.

One thing you unfortunately can't do with Marketo alone is host a separate JS file with your products array in Marketo (i.e. in your Design Studio assets), because Marketo still has trouble serving JS files. You could of course put the same file on another server and it would be fine. Or use a text file in an OBJECT tag... but that's another matter entirely.

[Anonymous]

That's great Sanford. Thank you so much for taking the time.

So, what you're saying is that we will have to host the list of products somewhere else other than Marketo?

Thanks,

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

If you use a separate .js file, it needs to be other than Marketo.

You can of course embed the products right in the page, as I did in the demo.

Or maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss using a .txt file (not .js) file hosted in Marketo. It works, just is a bit far afield for most people.

[J_Grant_Gray]

Saulo Avelar​ if this answers your question, mark it answered to help the community.