Upgrade your Pendo agent

This article describes how to upgrade your Pendo agent to ensure that you have the most up-to-date experience of Pendo Analytics, Guides, Feedback, and other Pendo offerings. It includes:

• A recap of what the Pendo agent is and how it's pulled into your application.
• How to determine what version of the Pendo agent you have.
• How to upgrade your Pendo agent, either automatically or manually.
• Agent compatibility settings.

You don't have to upgrade to the new Pendo agent, but we will only be adding features and making improvements to agent 2.0 and above. If you choose not to upgrade to the newest version, you won't receive automatic security updates and older versions will become increasingly difficult to support.

There are no special requirements for upgrading your Pendo agent.

The Pendo agent and install script

The Pendo agent is the JavaScript file (pendo.js) that runs inside of the browser of your web application. A standard Pendo installation loads the Pendo agent securely and asynchronously from our Cloudfront CDN.

The agent is pulled into your application by the install script (“snippet”), which is a few lines of code that retrieves and loads the Pendo agent code (pendo.js). You can find the install script by navigating to Settings > Subscription Settings > Applications, choosing the relevant application from the Applications list, and opening the Install Settings tab.

For more information about the Pendo agent and install script, see the Developer's guide to installing Pendo.

Identify your Pendo agent version

You can determine which install script and Pendo agent version you're currently using by entering the following code into your browser's console: pendo.VERSION.

If the console returns 2.0 or higher, you're using the new version of the install script and Pendo agent. If the console returns 1.x, you're using an old version of the install script and Pendo agent, and we recommend that you upgrade to the newest version.

Upgrade your Pendo agent

Previously, all customers shared the same agent. When we released new versions of the agent, all customers received all changes. Now, each subscription has their own, personalized agent. This lets your internal teams decide when they want to upgrade Pendo agent versions.

You can either choose to always pull the most recent version of the Pendo agent (recommended) or manually select versions to assist with your testing processes.

To automatically update your agent version:

1. Navigate to Settings > Subscription Settings.

2. Open the Applications tab.

3. Find and open the relevant app from your Applications list.

4. Open the Agent Settings tab at the top of the page. This shows you which agent versions your staging and production environments are currently using.
5. Select Manage Production Settings to the right of the Production environment section.
6. Choose Stable under Agent Version Settings. This is the default and recommended setting for production servers.
7. Select Save to continue.

This automatically deploys the newest stable version of the Pendo agent so you can receive the latest updates and critical bug fixes to your agent. 

The two other options available to you here are: 

• Beta, which automatically deploys the newest Beta version of the agent. For staging servers, this is the default and recommended setting. The Stable version is typically one to two weeks behind the Beta version.
• Manual, which lets you choose a specific version of the Pendo agent. You might choose this setting if you want to test a version on staging and then switch over to the fully tested (Stable) version on production.

If you're choosing to manually upgrade, the version you choose to run in your staging and production environments depends on your comfort level. You might choose the latest version for staging and then manually select the most recently tested version for production.

You can subscribe to agent update notifications through the RSS feed at Pendo’s Developers site.

Choose your agent compatibility settings

You can change your browser support option at the same time that you choose your agent upgrade options. 

Currently, the default is Standards. If your product has older browsers, we recommend using JSONP instead. Some of our customers choose not to use the JSONP option due to their security requirements. These customers use our XHR transport for guide contents instead.