Overview
This article outlines how to create a mobile guide.
Create a Guide
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Select Guides from the left-hand navigation menu.
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In the Guides page, select Create Guide.
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Select the relevant mobile app from the drop-down menu.
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Select any mobile layout templates and rename the guide.
Tip: As you will most likely have multiple guides, it's best practice to set naming conventions and use groups for easier searches.
Editing a Guide
To open the Visual Design Studio to edit the guide, click Manage in my app.
Tip: You can hover over the Guide preview to see the Manage In App option to launch Visual Design Studio.
Edits to the Guide can be made from within the Edit Container box. The container's default settings are set by the app's theme.
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To edit the container settings, change the theme to Custom.
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Once the initial edits are made, click Apply.
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Hover over the placeholder items within the Guide Preview and click to edit.
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To add a new building block to the Guide (button, title, image, text, poll, etc.), hover between items until a blue line displays.
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Click the 'plus' sign to add a building block.
Choose Guide Transition Animation
Select how a guide transitions in and out of each step.
To change the transition, go to Edit Container > Transitions > Animation Type and select animation type, duration, and direction where applicable.
Tip: The default transition is None. For multi-step, full screen, or popup guides, we recommend using the slide animation. Note: transitions are currently not available for tooltips.
Guide Activation Methods
When you create a guide, you need to decide how it's activated. Available activation options can be found in the action bar in Activation Settings:
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App Launch - when the app launches
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Page View - when the user views the pages you defined
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Target Element - when your user clicks the feature you defined
Activation Methods Details
App Launch - Guide is launched to segmented visitors as soon as the startSession method is called and the mobile session starts.
Common Use Cases:
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Show "What's New" on the new app version
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Start a new user onboarding
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Version sunsetting
Page View - Select the pages in the app where the guide will appear. Select an already-tagged page.
Note for Adopt End Users (AEUs): tagged pages are determined and then passed down by the Partner/Vendor from the Pendo Core/Engage application. If you are looking for a specific page in your mobile application that you would like to publish guides to, please contact the Partner/Vendor that owns your application.
Note: Different guide steps can have different pages set for activation. Deep links or organic user navigation with tooltips are recommended to navigate the user to the next step int he guide on a different page.
Common Use Cases:
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Guide new visitors on a specific section in your app
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Notify visitors that a specific app screen is under maintenance
Target Element - After selecting the desired page, select an element that will activate the guide. If the UI element has nt been saved, you will be prompted to save the new UI element.
Common Use Cases:
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Add a help button to your app to show contextual help, set the frequency to show every time
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Onboard a specific feature
Test the Guide on a Device
It's extremely important to test how the guide looks on an actual mobile device prior to publishing since the Visual Design Studio is just a "web preview" of the guide. To test the guide, select Test.
Note: If your device is not connected, you will need to connect your device.
During the test, Pendo disregards segments and throttling rules and shows the guide each time. Any target elements, pages, and activation methods set as part of the guide must be present for this preview method.
Note: Mobile guides also do not have the concept of a "staging" environment when testing guides. If you would like to test your guide in a mock live scenario, most users will segment their guide to the current visitorID they are using for testing.
Once you finish working on your guide, save your changes using the top right-hand Save button and select Exit to leave the designer, or select a drop-down icon next to Save and select Save and Exit.
Segment and Schedule a Guide
Once you're satisfied with your Guide, navigate to your Guide's details page to adjust the guide's segment & scheduling.
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Select the segment of users who will receive the guides. The default segment is "Everyone." You can see how many users are included in your selected segment and the number of eligible visitors.
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Schedule when your Guide will go live (and, if needed, when it will no longer be active).
There may be instances when the number of eligible visitors are smaller than your segment. This may be because some of your users are still using an old app version with an old SDK version. In this case, Pendo's new features may not be available to these users.
Publish and Validate a Guide
To publish your Guide, update the Guide's status to Public. Since there is no "staging" option for mobile, never publish a mobile guide without testing its full flow on a mobile device. If you are included in the guide segment and want to see the guide on your device after publishing, you will need to:
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Disconnect your device from Pendo - select a Pendo FAB on your device, and select Exit pairing mode.
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Close your app and relaunch it (guides are sent to the device at the beginning of the "session").
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If you are included in the guide's segment, you will be able to see the guide in your app by triggering the guide's "activation" criteria.
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Note that once a user sees the guide, they will not see it again, unless set to "show every time."
Tip: If it recommended to publish the guide to a smaller "test group" before publishing it to a broader user segment. You can create a Test segment if your team's users (using visitor or accountID's) and publish the guide to this test segment. Once you're happy with the results, publish the guide to your broader user segment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I test a mobile guide with only an IP address?
No, we currently do. not have an out-of-the-box option to do this. Alternatively, you can create a test segment that segments users to the development app version.
What counts as a guide being dismissed and not eligible to show again?
In some cases, your users may put your app in the background on their phone; by pressing the home button on Android or swiping up/touch ID button on iOS. When this happens, if a guide is displayed, the guide will not be dismissed and will be expected to show again when they launch your app again. Your guide is considered dismissed (and not expected to show again) when clicking on a button with a dismiss action, clicking the x buttons in the corner, or completing the last step of the guide.
Note: Clicking the Back button on an Android device dismissed popup guides.