Fallback Category for Recommendations

This document explains how you can set a category as the start for default recommendations.

If an IRIS.TV does not recognize the initial asset for recommendations, a list of default recommendations will be generated instead of recommendations based on the initial asset. The fallback category setting gives publishers the ability to set default recommendations to come from a specific category. 

Once the fallback category is set, the initial set of assets (by default five assets) will come from the category. Then, subsequent assets can be from any eligible categories according to the business rules set on the account. For instance if the Category is not locked off, the initial set of recommendations will be from the fallback category and subsequent assets can come other categories.

There are two steps to setting up the fallback category: 

1. Retrieve the Category ID from Vision
2. Set the Category ID for the fallback category. This can be done via the player plugin options

Retrieving the Category ID

To retrieve the Category ID from Vision, go the Category Taxonomy page under Account. 

From there,  find the category you want to set as the fallback. Click the "Copy Category ID" button. This will automatically add the ID to your clipboard.

Set the Category ID

Setting up for a player plugin

To set the fallback category in the plugin options, you'll need to add a new parameter called "category_id" with the Category ID as the value. Here's an example of plugin options set with a fallback category.

{
  "iframe": true,
  "global": "iris_player",
  "campaign_tracking": true,
  "client_token": lkj980ama
  "ssl": true,
  "category_id": "622969661bb3ab711f1f"
}

Once that is set up, default recommendations will be generated from the fallback category.