Admin users can specify staging servers to use as testing environments for deploying and testing guides before publishing them in a production environment. This helps avoid overloading users with guides or creating additional segments that target only internal users. It also means that analytics associated with a guide that you're testing don't appear in your production environment.
Note: Depending on how you've installed the Pendo install script, it might be installed on both production and staging environments. For more information on installing on multiple environments, visit Pendo Academy. For more information about the installation process, see Developer's guide to implementing Pendo using the install script.
After this is set up, a guide that's set to Staged is only deployed in a staging environment. A guide that's set to Public is deployed in both the staging and production environments.
Add a staging server
Staging environments are added in Settings > Staging as server hosts or domains. A staging server is typically a QA or development domain (such as *.qa.example.com) that mirrors your production environment and is only accessible to your internal teams.
- As an admin user, go to Settings > Staging in the left-side menu.
- Select + Add Server Host/Domain.
- Select the server or servers that you want to set as your staging servers or enter a domain.
- Select Add in the bottom-right when you're done. This adds the staging server to your list of environments.
Clear guide data
Clearing guide data is useful for testing guides in a staging environment.
To prevent visitors from seeing the same guide more than once, an automatic guides only displays when there's no "dismissal event" for that guide and the target visitor. A dismissal event typically occurs when the visitor selects the top right X in any of the steps.
For testing purposes, you might want to see automatic guides multiple times. To do this, you must reset all of the collected guide data. Clear the guide data to reset and prompt the guide to display to visitors who've previously seen and dismissed it.
The Clear Guide Data option is only available when a guide is in Staged status. Go to a staged guide's details page and select the ellipses (...) in the top-right of the page. A note shows at the top of the page. Select Clear Guide Data if you want to continue.