Add Elasticsearch index to existing Rails application

Question

Prerequisite:

Rails models look like

class Customer < ActiveRecord::Base
  include Elasticsearch::Model
  include Elasticsearch::Model::Callbacks
end

Question: What is the correct way to index the models?

My assumption:

Execute the following rake task for every model I want to add to elasticsearch, but only the very first time

bundle exec rake environment elasticsearch:import:model CLASS='Customer'

I add "Customer.import" to the very bottom of the models file to insure that the models get indexed every time I start my rails application.

Is that enough? Will this work, even if I change the mappings of the model or if I add a new field?

Moustafa Sallam · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-01 19:58:09Z

Adding elasticsearch do existing model:

First adding the callbacks module will take care of indexing any new records or updating existing records you have already added it include Elasticsearch::Model::Callbacks
Second, you need to specify which fields are you going to index in that model by defining the following method at your model as_indexed_json

def as_indexed_json(options={}) as_json( only: [:first_name, :last_name, :address], include: [products: { only: :name }] ) end

This is a very good article explainging everything and of course everytime you need to index a new field, you need to updated the as_indexed_json method and also run the rake task. to rebuild the indexes agaain.
Third to index the data you have it already before installing elasticsearch you can just create a rake task to to call import method on that model to re-index or create a new index for that model.

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