Create a cross-app guide

Cross-app guides allow you to provide in-app messaging across multiple web applications by merging existing guides together.

Cross-app guides can be accessed and configured with both the Pendo install script for web applications and the Pendo Launcher for extension applications, but you can’t combine the two types to create a cross-app guide.

Permissions

There are three guide roles with different permissions: Guide Creator, Guide Publisher, and Guide Content Editor. Admin users have all of the following permissions.

• Pendo users with Guide Creator role permissions can create and edit guides from scratch, and edit an existing guide that’s not public.
• Pendo users with Guide Creator or Guide Content Editor role permissions can create and edit guides from layouts and templates.
• Pendo users with Guide Publisher role permissions can publish and schedule guides.
• All guide roles can delete draft, staged, and disabled guides.

You can also create custom user roles with a combination of the following guide permissions as needed:

• Create and edit guides from scratch.
• Create and edit guides from layouts.
• Publish guides.
• Edit and delete public guides.
• Delete draft, staged, and disabled guides.

For more information, see Roles and permissions.

Prerequisites

This feature is available for Pendo subscriptions with Guides Pro included in their package. If you're unsure whether your plan includes this or if you're interested in getting access, contact your Pendo account representative.

You must have cross-app agent cookies and local storage turned on for each application involved in your cross app-guide:

1. Go to Settings > Subscription settings > Applications.
2. Find and open the application for the guide that you're including in your cross-app guide.
3. Turn on Enable cross-app agent cookies and local storage.

The guides that you want to include in a cross-app guide must already exist. For instructions on how to create a guide, see Create an overlay guide.

The list of guides available to use for a cross-app guide depends on which applications you have permissions for viewing guides. When editing a guide, if you don't have access to a specific application, and you attempt to edit a cross-app guide that uses that application, you can't add guides from that app.

You can create a cross-app guide across multiple applications that have the same second-level domain (example.com). The subdomains don't need to be the same. For example, applications that belong to the following subdomains are valid for cross-app guides because the second-level domain is the same: 123.example.com and abc.example.com.

You can't do the following with cross-app guides: 

• You can't include a cross-app guide as a step in another cross-app guide.
• You can't add a cross-app guide to a Resource Center.
• You can't use guide throttling with a cross-app guide.
• You can't use Confirmation as your activation method for a cross-app guide.
• You can't combine a guide created with a direct web (install script) implementation of Pendo with a guide created with a browser extension (Pendo Launcher) implementation of Pendo.

Create a cross-app guide

To create a cross-app guide, go to Guides > Guides and:

1. In the top-right corner of the Guides page, select the arrow next to Create guide to open the dropdown menu, and select Create cross-app guide.
   
   
   
   
2. In the Create cross-app guide page, enter a meaningful name for your cross-app guide.
   
   
   
   
3. In the Select guides area, choose an existing guide from the dropdown menu. When you choose a guide, the Select guides table displays the Application, guide Status, and number (#) of steps for each guide you choose. The status for any guide that you choose is automatically moved to Draft.
   
   
   
   
4. In the Guide Start URL field, enter the application URL for the first step of each guide.
   
   
   
   The URL for each guide must match the cookie domain value in each application's Cookies and data privacy settings (for example, github.io). To check this value: 
   1. For each application, go to Settings > Subscription settings > Applications.
   2. Find and open the application for the guide that you're including in your cross-app guide.
   3. Check the Cookie domain value listed under Cookies and data privacy. This must match the second-level domain for the application that the first step of your guide is anchored to. For example, if your guide loads from https://123.github.io, then the value for cookie domain must be github.io.
      
      
      
      
5. Continue to select and add the URLs for additional existing guides that you want to include in the cross-app guide.
   • If the first guide that you choose was created for a direct web (install script) implementation of Pendo, then the list only includes other guides created for a direct web implementation of Pendo. 
   • If the first guide that you choose was created for a browser extension (Pendo Launcher) implementation of Pendo, then the list only includes other guides created for a browser extension implementation of Pendo.
6. When you’ve added all the required guides, select Create guide in the bottom-right corner of the page. This opens guide's Settings page.
   
   

View guide settings

You're automatically taken to the Settings page for your cross-app guide when you create it. To view the settings of a cross-app guide that you haven't just created:

1. From the left-side menu, go to Guides > Guides. The Overview tab is open by default.
2. Find and open your cross-app guide. Cross-app guides are indicated with an icon in the App column of the Guides table.

The Settings tab is open by default when you open a guide. Each guide step and the app in the cross-app guide is labeled in the Content section. From here, you can view the guide applications and guide steps included in the cross-app guide.

From the Settings page, you can also:

• Edit the content of the cross-app guide in the Visual Design Studio. For instructions, see Edit your cross-app guide in this article.
• Schedule the guide's start date and time and expiration date and time. For instructions, see Test and deliver your guide.
• Set the activation method. For instructions, see Activate your guide.
• Define a segment for the cross-app guide. For instructions, see Test and deliver your guide. 

Edit your cross-app guide

1. In the Settings page for your guide, select Manage in my app.
   
   
   
   
2. Choose a step in your cross-app guide to start editing.
   
   
   
   
3. Enter the URL for the guide step.
   
   
   
   
4. Select Launch Designer in the bottom-right corner of the window. This opens the Visual Design Studio over your application in a new tab, where you can edit the contents of your cross-app guide.
5. Select Save and then Exit in the top-right corner of the toolbar when you're done.