Overview
Use this article to check why your Guide might not be displaying as expected. Below you will find the most common issues that prevent a Guide from displaying as desired.
Finding Your Visitor ID
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Open your application and sign in as a user
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Open the Browser Developer Console by right-clicking anywhere on the screen + choosing "Inspect"
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Type
pendo.validateInstall()
into the console and hit enter -
Visitor and Account metadata will be returned
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The Visitor ID returned will specifically be very helpful for troubleshooting both Activation + Segmentation issues below.
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Activation
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If using Automatic activation, confirm that the Visitor trying to view the guide has not already seen and dismissed the guide previously. You can confirm this by checking the Guide Metrics.
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Navigate to Guide Metrics by clicking on the name of your guide from the Guides page > click "Metrics" in the top left of the window next to "Settings" > scroll down on the page to the "Guide Activity" table. Make sure to expand your segment to "Everyone" and the date range selector to the full date range the guide has been published. If you see the Visitor ID of the user who is trying to view the guide on the list, then it is expected that they are no longer seeing the Automatically activated guide because they've already seen and dismissed it before.
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If using Badge or Target Element Activation, confirm that the Visitor has clicked on the appropriate badge or targeted element as setup in the Activation settings in the Guide Designer.
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Additionally, validate the "Guide Behavior" and "Frequency" settings for both Badge + Target Element activations as it could be specified to show the guide only once. If that setting is selected, follow the same steps above to validate whether or not the Visitor has already seen and dismissed the guide.
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If you have No Activation Method selected under Activation Settings, your guide will not display unless the guide is the destination of a "Launch Guide" button action on a different guide or is Resource Center Activated.
Segmentation
Validate that the Visitor trying to view the guide is part of the guide's targeted segment. If the guide segment is targeting any number of custom rules, try checking the below:
- If the rules are targeting specific Visitor IDs - validate the Visitor ID of the user trying to see the guide is included in the list of rules
- If the rules are targeting metadata fields with text, note that all text fields are case sensitive (including Visitor ID)
- Check for misspellings or additional space characters (copy/paste can sometimes capture a space character that is not always visible)
Tip: After checking the individual segment rules above, if you believe the Visitor should be included in the segment, you can validate by navigating to the "Analytics" page and targeting the segment in question, as well as a date range in which you know the user has had activity. Scroll to the Visitors table at the bottom of the page - if the Visitor ID of the user in questions is not included in the list, they do not meet the segmentation rules. If they are in the list, the segment is likely not the cause of their issues with seeing the guide.
Location
When building the guide in the Visual Design Studio, you have the ability to target the guide to a specific page location and/or have a target element match. This allows for greater specificity and control over where a guide appears, but can be a culprit of guides not appearing as expected.
- Open the designer and select the first step of the guide. In the Container Settings > Location tab check to see if there is a page location specified and/or an element match. If the guide is set to "Sitewide" with no element match, location is not your issue.
- If the guide has a specific page selected, you will need to validate that you are on the correct URL in the application where trying to view the guide.
- If the guide has an element location selected, you will need to validate that the targeted element is visible and has the same rule on the URL in the application where trying to view the guide.
Scheduling
- If you have set a specific start date/time, you'll want to validate that the current date/time matches the schedule window of the guide. Note that timezone is set by the Partner in their Engage Subscription.
- Additionally, as part of scheduling a guide, you need to validate that the guide is/was in "Scheduled" status ahead of the start date/time so that our system knew to push the guide to "Published" status. If the guide was in any other status than "Scheduled" when the start date/time arrived, we would not have published the guide.
Walkthrough Guide is Displaying, but Not Transitioning as Expected
If you have a walkthrough guide with multiple steps, but aren't able to get the guide to display all steps as expected, check the below:
- If your guide is supposed to transition to the next step based on the click of a "Next" button, you will want to validate that the button action is set up correctly to advance the user in the guide designer.
- If your guide is supposed to transition to the next step based on the click of an element on the page as can be done with tooltip guides (not a "next step" button click in the guide itself), you will want to validate the "behavior" actions in the Container Settings for the guide step says to advance the guide based on element click.
- If neither of the above are your issue, you will also want to validate the specified page location (if any) of the step that is not appearing matches the URL that you are currently on when expecting to see the step
- If the page location is correct as well, you will also want to validate if there is a targeted element location on the step not appearing. The guide step will only appear if that targeted element location rule is present and visible on the screen with the same CSS rule as shown in the guide designer for that step.