Jetpack submenu: contains inconsistent items on different Atomic plans

[Nic-Sevic]

Update: see comment below: #78485 (comment) This is bigger than just Search.

Quick summary

The Jetpack search submenu item doesn't show in calypso. It also doesn't show in wp-admin when SSO is active, giving no way to access the search dash unless you know the link ( {site}/wp-admin/admin.php?page=jetpack-search ). This is happening on all WoA sites.

Based on this previous issue, it should always be showing for WoA sites: Automattic/jetpack#27512
pr: Automattic/jetpack#27568

Steps to reproduce

1. open the dashboard of a WoA site with any Atomic plan
2. make sure sso is turned on
3. check the Jetpack side bar menu for search and see it missing
4. verify it's the same on the wp-admin and calypso pages
5. deactivate sso
6. check wp-admin and calypso dash pages again and see search submenu item on wp-admin but not calypso pages (also notice how the sidebar condenses and menu items move in wp-admin)

What you expected to happen

The search submenu item should always be visible

What actually happened

It's not when sso is on

When SSO on:

When SSO off:

Impact

All

Available workarounds?

Yes, difficult to implement

Platform (Simple and/or Atomic)

Atomic

Logs or notes

No response

[cuemarie]

📌 SCRUBBING : RESULT - Replicated / Could Not Replicate / Uncertain

• Tested on Atomic – Replicated on Woo Essential Plan only

📌 FINDINGS/SCREENSHOTS/VIDEO

• On my Atomic test site on the Business Plan, Jetpack > Search appeared in the Jetpack menu when I was on both Calypso and wp-admin pages, as well as with SSO on and off.
• On my Atomic test site on the Essential Plan, Jetpack > Search was only visible in /wp-admin/ while SSO was disabled.

SSO Enabled > Calypso & /wp-admin
SSO Disabled > Calypso

• Jetpack menu shows Dashboard, Stats, Activity Log, Backup only

SSO Disabled > /wp-admin

• Jetpack menu shows Dashboard, Settings, Akisemt Anti-Spam, Search

📌 ACTIONS

• Assigned to Other
• CC @jeherve

[jeherve]

This may be on purpose; I'm not sure the Woo Express plans are supposed to support Instant Search.

I'll defer to @markbiek on that, since he worked on adding different feature support to Woo Express plans in D106438-code and #73958. Maybe some (or all) of the Woo Express plans should start supporting Instant Search?

[Nic-Sevic]

@cuemarie @jeherve The failure to show the submenu item in Calypso (regardless of SSO) and in wp-admin (when SSO active) is also happening on eCommerce sites which definitely should have Instant Search included.

So effectively:

Business and Pro:
always shows everywhere, regardless of SSO

eCommerce:
never shows in Calypso
doesn't show in wp-admin when SSO active

Woo Express:
doesn't show on calypso with sso off
doesn't show anywhere with calypso on

[markbiek]

This may be on purpose; I'm not sure the Woo Express plans are supposed to support Instant Search.

I'll defer to @markbiek on that, since he worked on adding different feature support to Woo Express plans in D106438-code and #73958. Maybe some (or all) of the Woo Express plans should start supporting Instant Search?

I'm looking at fbhepr%2Skers%2Sjcpbz%2Sjc%2Qpbagrag%2Szh%2Qcyhtvaf%2Sjcpbz%2Qsrngherf%2Spynff%2Qjcpbz%2Qsrngherf.cuc%3Se%3Q57s7r179-og (class-wpcom-features.php) it does look like the Commerce plan doesn't include instant search. The Woo Express plans were basically copies of Commerce so they don't have instant search either.

What I'm not sure about is the why of that. @daledupreez Does this ring any bells for you?

[daledupreez]

What I'm not sure about is the why of that.

It looks like we are hiding this menu item via code in Automattic/wc-calypso-bridge that restructures the menus for eCommerce and Woo Express plans:
https://github.com/Automattic/wc-calypso-bridge/blob/1d02fb2fbc3caf8ae2380438edeba82af19547de/includes/class-wc-calypso-bridge-ecommerce-admin-menu.php#L468-L469

I think we'll need @Automattic/somewherewarm to chime in on the reasoning for this.

[manospsyx]

Thanks for the ping @daledupreez :)

The Search menu item was suppressed as, at the time, it only pointed to a landing page prompting users to activate Jetpack Search, which is not a paid feature in Woo Express plans. It just didn't make sense (to me, at least) to have an entire menu item and landing page dedicated to activating a feature that's already there. I can see there's an upsell there now in addition to that toggle 🤔

On a related note, Jetpack Search seems to be (?) of little use to merchants who use block themes, and with Woo Express we've tried to take a block-theme first approach in everything we do: When a user visits the Jetpack dashboard, they are prompted to make use of Jetpack Search by adding a widget to their site -- but when a block theme is installed, this takes them to a black hole. Please try this and let me know if you see an end/purpose in that flow.

I'm happy to see the Search menu item and the landing page return -- but I'd love to also be certain that we're guiding merchants to utilize features with real, tangible value. If I can't see the value in Jetpack Search when a block theme is active, then maybe most new merchants won't be able to, either.

[manospsyx]

On another related note, @xristos3490 and I tried to modify the Site Editor Header template and Search templates to leverage Jetpack Search -- we couldn't find a Jetpack Search block that we could drop in there, or even understand how to surface it better in the Site Editor.

[jeherve]

it only pointed to a landing page prompting users to activate Jetpack Search, which is not a paid feature in Woo Express plans. It just didn't make sense (to me, at least) to have an entire menu item and landing page dedicated to activating a feature that's already there. I can see there's an upsell there now in addition to that toggle 🤔

The Search menu includes a few more things now indeed. Here is a screenshot:

The menu item displays:

• Some usage data
• How much data is indexed (and what type of data, if you use different post types like products for example)
• A toggle to enable / disable the feature.
• A link to customize the Search widget (that is the data that appears in the sidebar of the search modal)
• A link to customize the search modal, leading you to a page that looks like this:

Jetpack Search seems to be (?) of little use to merchants who use block themes
[...]
I'd love to also be certain that we're guiding merchants to utilize features with real, tangible value. If I can't see the value in Jetpack Search when a block theme is active, then maybe most new merchants won't be able to, either.

Jetpack Search takes over the default search experience, so it works with block themes as well as with classic themes. It basically works out of the box.

Maybe we'd need highlight this a bit better in the Search page so people can better understand the benefits of turning it on.

@xristos3490 and I tried to modify the Site Editor Header template and Search templates to leverage Jetpack Search -- we couldn't find a Jetpack Search block that we could drop in there, or even understand how to surface it better in the Site Editor.

There is no "Jetpack Search" block, but you can use the core Search block in your template parts. When a visitor uses the core Search block, the Jetpack Search modal will appear on the site.

When a user visits the Jetpack dashboard, they are prompted to make use of Jetpack Search by adding a widget to their site -- but when a block theme is installed, this takes them to a black hole. Please try this and let me know if you see an end/purpose in that flow.

Do you think you could walk me through the steps you followed to get to that black hole? That seems to be a bug, and that's something we should fix.

Ideally, we should move from the search widget area to a block in the future:

Automattic/jetpack#24594

Until then though, you should still be able to use Instant Search; you should be redirected to the correct screen when you attempt to configure it.

---

In my opinion Jetpack Search can be a valuable tool for Woo Express site owners.

If we were to decide to make this feature available to site owners, we would need to add Instant Search support to Woo Express like we've done for other features in D106438-code. That should be enough to close this issue.

[jeherve]

The Search menu item was suppressed as, at the time, it only pointed to a landing page prompting users to activate Jetpack Search, which is not a paid feature in Woo Express plans. It just didn't make sense (to me, at least) to have an entire menu item and landing page dedicated to activating a feature that's already there

Do you happen to remember if there was any p2 discussion about this at the time? Considering this issue and the discussion above, maybe it would make sense to reopen that existing discussion if there is one.

[manospsyx]

Jetpack Search takes over the default search experience, so it works with block themes as well as with classic themes. It basically works out of the box.

Thanks so much for helping me understand how Jetpack Search works!

Do you think you could walk me through the steps you followed to get to that black hole? That seems to be a bug, and that's something we should fix.

Sure thing! With a block theme activated:

• Go to Jetpack > Dashboard
• Locate the "Search" section under Performance and Growth
• You should see something like this:

• Follow the prompt to add a Search (Jetpack) widget. This is likely where my confusion came from re naming.
• You will be taken to the Customizer. Since you have a block theme installed, Widgets will be unavailable -- and the Customizer will soon be gone. There's nothing to do there :)

Do I understand correctly that this prompt should be replaced with something else when a block theme is used?

If we were to decide to make this feature available to site owners, we would need to add Instant Search support to Woo Express like we've done for other features in D106438-code. That should be enough to close this issue.

That would be awesome. One of the most frequent headaches I have seen merchants had with Search over the years was that the presentation of search results does not work as merchants expect -- merchants want:

• product results to be presented separate from pages/posts (different section), or results to be labelled (Page:/Product:) depending on their type;
• results to be filterable by type (page/post/product);
• have control over the post types returned in results;

This is likely a need that the instant Search modal could serve better than the native Site Editor template, and make the feature a lot more valuable for Woo merchants.

Do you happen to remember if there was any p2 discussion about this at the time? Considering this issue and the discussion above, maybe it would make sense to reopen that existing discussion if there is one.

Let me check and get back to you!

[jeherve]

With a block theme activated:

Go to Jetpack > Dashboard
Locate the "Search" section under Performance and Growth
You should see something like this:

That's a bug, nice find! It only impacts sites that do not support Instant Search; I think that's why it stayed unnoticed for so long. I opened Automattic/jetpack#31614 to get this fixed.

[mrfoxtalbot]

I can no longer reproduce this, it seems to be resolved: The Seach menu item seems to be there across all options:

AT without SSO (Unified Navigation)

AT without SSO (Core Navigation)

Please note that, even though this appears to have been solved, I just referenced a separate issue that could be connected to this. Automattic/jetpack#36557

[mrfoxtalbot]

I just ran into this while testing something else and I need to amend my previous comment. I did not realize the issue was connected to the plans. This is still reproducible with the Entrepreneur plan:

Kapture.2024-04-15.at.08.08.31.mp4

[gibrown]

Entrepreneur plan doesn't exist anymore. I've confirmed that this still happens on the Commerce plan though. Only happens when the site doesn't have a Jetpack Search plan and only on Atomic.

This actually affects more than just Search. Here is side by side of Commerce and Business both on Atomic. Quite a few differences.

I'm going to update this issue to be a bit broader and hopefully we can fix it in a way that it doesn't happen again.

[gibrown]

@jeherve I feel like this should go into some untangling work, but not sure what board or what team could take it.