There are four guide templates to choose from: a Guide, a Badge, a Confirmation, or Automation. The main difference between the first three options are how they're activated. For information on Automation, see Guide Designer: Adopt Studio and Guide button actions.
- The Guide type can be activated automatically, through the Resource Center, or both.
- The Badge type is activated through an icon that you place on the page.
- The Confirmation type is activated when a user selects a button that you specify as needing confirmation before the user can proceed.
All guide types can be multistep and can consist of a combination of Tooltips and Lightboxes. Tooltips are positioned next to a specified element on the page, and Lightboxes are overlaid in a specific position on your page (for example, center-aligned).
Guide options
A guide can be presented to users automatically, through the Resource Center, or a combination of both. If no activation options are selected, the default is automatic activation. You can disable automatic activation to ensure your guide doesn’t appear at all.
To turn automatic activation on or off:
- Navigate to Guides in the left-side navigation.
- Find and open your guide from the list.
- Select Edit in the top-right of the Activation card.
- Toggle Automatic Activation on or off as required.
- Select Save.
To add an existing guide to the Resource Center:
- Navigate to the Resource Center in the left-side navigation.
- Find and open your Resource Center from the list.
- Add a Guide List Module if one doesn’t yet exist.
- Hover over your Guide List Module and select View Module Details.
- Select Edit in the top-right corner of the Content card.
- Select your Guide from the dropdown menu.
- Select Save.
Badge options
In-line support is activated when the user interacts with a badge that you place on the page. A badge is a type of guide that provides supplemental information about features that would otherwise clutter the UI if permanently displayed. Follow the instructions under Create a guide in the Guide Designer: Adopt Studio article to learn how to add a badge guide type to your page.
You have a number of options for your badge in Step Settings, which you access by selecting the gear icon underneath the badge container while creating or editing the badge. These options are grouped under: Properties, Location, Badge, and Advanced.
The options in the first two tabs are unaffected by whether you've chosen a badge guide type. For more information about these tabs, see Step Settings in Guide Designer: Adopt Studio.
In the Badge tab of Step Settings, you can edit:
- Badge customization options, including the ability to change the Badge Icon, Position, Offset, Color, Z-Index, and ARIA label.
- Guide Behavior. Whether the guide appears only when the badge icon is clicked, or also when the user hovers over it.
- Badge Behavior. Whether the badge is persistent on the screen or appears only when the user hovers over it.
As well as choosing from one of our standard icons, you have the option to upload a custom image for your badge. When creating or editing a badge:
- Select the gear icon underneath the guide container to open Step Settings.
- Open the Badge tab on the left side of the window.
- Open the Badge Icon dropdown menu and choose Custom Image at the bottom of the list.
- Upload your image into the grey box that appears at the top. The icon you upload must be the size of your intended badge. Our standard icon size is 14 x 14 pixels.
- Select Done in the bottom-right corner of Step Settings.
As with tooltips, badges also have the Advanced option to Enable Element Contains Rule. This allows you to conditionally display your badge based on the contents of the element it's anchored to.
Confirmation options
Confirmation guides are activated when a user selects a button specified by the guide builder. Pendo consumes the selection and instead presents a confirmation guide to the user, which you can edit in Adopt Studio. This prevents the end user from unintentionally selecting a destructive or time-consuming process.
Follow the instructions under Create a guide in the Guide Designer: Adopt Studio article to learn how to add a Confirmation guide type to your page.
Confirmation guides always include at least the following two options: cancel or proceed. You can't remove or edit these buttons, but you can add the following buttons:
- Next step. Recommended only if you want to continue providing information or guidance after the user has chosen to proceed. If you want to give information before the user continues, choose Launch Guide instead.
- Dismiss Guide. Use this if you want to provide an additional option to cancel the process.
- URL link. Recommended only if you want to redirect the user to some other source before the user makes a decision to proceed or cancel.
- Launch Guide. Recommended if you want to provide additional context or guidance before the user makes a decision to proceed or cancel. You must have a guide already created to choose this option.
- Previous Step. This is only available if you are creating a multi-step confirmation guide.
- Go to Step. Recommended only if you want to allow users to view specific information or guidance after the user has chosen to proceed. If you want to give information before the user continues, choose Launch Guide instead.
If the end-user proceeds, Pendo sends a Click Event to the selected button.
Element Contains Rule for tooltips and badges
Use the Element Contains Rule to conditionally display tooltips and badges based on the contents of the target element. This can be text or numbers.
For information on tooltips and badges, see Guide Designer: Adopt Studio, which walks you through creating a guide.
Once you’ve created your first Tooltip or placed your Badge in the UI:
- Select the gear icon to open Step Settings.
- Open the Advanced tab on the left side, and toggle on the Enable Element Contains Rule option.
- Choose your content type from the first dropdown menu: Text or Number.
- Choose from the value options in the second dropdown menu.
- Enter your value.
- Select Done.
If you chose Text as your content type, you have Contains, Does Not Contain, Exactly Matches, and Does Not Match available to you. If you chose Number as your content type, you have Equals, Not Equal To, Is Greater Than, and Is Less Than available to you.
Only one Element Contains Rule can be configured per guide.
Guide anchoring and persistence for lightboxes
Use Guide Persistence to activate your guide when an element appears and to ensure that your guide persists even if the element then disappears.
If you use a lightbox as the first step in a guide, you can anchor that guide to a particular element that appears on the screen, including time-limited alerts and modals. Once you’ve created your lightbox as the first step in your guide:
- Select the gear icon to open Step Settings.
- Open the Advanced tab on the left side, and toggle on the Guide Persistence option
- Choose the Make selection button, or the Re-select button if you're changing an existing selection.
- Choose the UI element you want to anchor the guide to.
- Select Done.
For more information on Step Settings, see Editor Mode in the Guide Designer: Adopt Studio article.