Add button actions to guides

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You can add buttons with different controls and navigation actions when creating your guide in the Visual Design Studio. This article describes the button actions available to you.

Add a button building block

Buttons are added with a Button or Multi Button building block in a guide step in the Visual Design Studio. 

ButtonBlocks.png

Note: Multi Button is for mobile guides only.

Edit button actions

The Edit Button menu opens as soon as a new button is added or when you hover the cursor over a button in a guide step. In the menu, you can set the button style, button text, and define the button actions. 

ActionEditButton.png

Button actions are also available in the Behavior tab of the Edit Container menu. This shows the actions for all buttons in the container.

ButtonEditContainer.png

After selecting a primary action, you can add compound button actions, such as opening a URL, opening another guide, going to a specific step, or adding an amount of time for snoozing the guide. For more information, see Compound button actions below.

To edit a button's actions:

  1. Hover over the button and select the edit icon.

    ButtonEditButtonButton.png
  2. From the Actions dropdown menu, select the behavior you want the button to start .

For a list of available actions, see Button actions

Button actions

This section provides details about the button actions available when creating your guide in the Visual Design Studio.

Next Step

ActionNext.png

Next Step is the default button action. It advances to the next step in a multi-step guide. This action doesn't interact with the UI, and the next step must display on the same page with the targeted CSS element available, if necessary, or the user won't see the next guide step.

The only available compound button action is URL Link.

Note: If there's no next step, this defaults to dismissing the guide.

Dismiss Guide

ActionDismiss.png

Dismiss Guide closes the guide and indicates the guide was dismissed in guide analytics.

The only available compound button action is URL Link.

Submit All Polls + Advance Guide

ActionSubmitPoll.png

Submit All Polls + Advance Guide is only available if a Poll building block is on the guide step. This action submits all poll responses to guide analytics and advances the guide to the next linear step or dismisses the Guide if there isn't another step.

The only available compound button action is URL Link.

URL Link

ActionURL.png

URL Link is just like selecting a link in text. The browser goes to the target URL. Select if the user should go to the target URL in a new browser tab.

The available compound button actions are Next Step, Dismiss Guide, Submit All Polls + Advance Guide, Previous Step, Snooze Guide, and Go to Step.

Note: The following button actions require Pendo agent version 2.62+ or Mobile SDK 2.3.3+.

Launch Guide

Launch Guide dismisses the current guide and launches the targeted guide. The guide being launched must have the same page and target segment as the currently displayed guide step or the guide won't launch and the user experience stops after selecting the button.

This action prompts you to select a guide from a dropdown list. The dropdown list contains your Draft, Staged, and Public guides. The guides are sorted by activation on the current page and then in alphabetical order for all other guides. Guides with Disabled status and the Resource Center (including individual modules) aren't an option for the Launch Guide button action.

ActionLaunch.png

The launched guide must be Public to be seen by users in your production environment. Staged guides can only be seen in your staging environment.

ActionLaunchSelect.png

There are no available compound button actions.

Specify a step for Launch Guide button

You can specify which step to launch when using Launch Guide. This gives guide builders more control over which paths to lead their end users through and removes the need to duplicate guides.

specify_starting_step.png

Specify a step using permalinks

You can relaunch a guide at a specific step using a permalink for a user who has already seen part of the guide. For example, if a user has already seen step 1 and step 2 of a guide, rather than them seeing the whole guide again, manually add a permalink to take them to a specific step, such as step 3. 

  1. In the guide’s Settings page, select the ellipsis (...) in the top-right corner and select Permalinks.

    select_permalinks.png
  2. Copy the link of the required step and add it to the URL of the specific step.

    permalinks.png

For more information on permalinks, see Create a guide permalink.

Previous Step

ActionPrevious.png

Previous Step goes to the previous linear step in a multi-step guide.

Note: If you delete Step 1 or move a Step with a Previous Step action to Step 1, an error message lets you know to update your button.

 ButtonAlert.png

The only available compound button action is URL Link.

Snooze Guide

ActionSnooze.png

Snooze Guide dismisses the guide and reactivates it after the set duration has passed. Snooze duration can be set in increments of minutes, hours, and days for web apps or hours and days for mobile apps. Snooze works best with automatically activated guides.

Snoozed guides still respect Guide Throttling settings. A snoozed guide counts as a guide view for Guide Throttling and reactivates after the Snooze duration has elapsed as allowed by the Guide Throttling setting. Snoozed guides can still be activated manually by a target element, badge, or from the Resource Center. Viewing a guide manually will cancel the pending Snooze action for that Guide.

Only one snooze duration can be set for each button. If you want the visitor to select their snooze duration, add multiple buttons with different times. Snooze can't be added as a button action for the Close button. It also can't be used with NPS Polls.

The only available compound button action is URL Link.

Go to Step

ActionGoStep.png

Go to Step advances the guide to the specified guide step in the same guide. This doesn't have to be a linear progression and any step before or after the current step can be used. Guide analytics indicates that the visitor used Go to Step to view nonlinear guide steps.

ActionStep3.png

Go to Step has many creative use cases. It can be used to create a single guide with multiple flows that can be launched from a single starting point with buttons directing the user to the step that starts each flow.

For example, a single guide includes multiple workflows:

  • Flow 1 is guide steps 2-4
  • Flow 2 starts on guide step 5
  • A button on step 1 can direct the user directly to step 5 to start Flow 2, skipping steps 2-4.
  • A Button can redirect a user back to Step 1 to restart a guide at any point or skip ahead in a workflow.

Multiple buttons can be used to direct the user conditionally to the appropriate guide steps based on their selection. For example, "Are you satisfied with our product?" uses "Yes" and "No" buttons to direct the user to appropriate Polls or content.

The target step must be on the same page with any target element present to display appropriately. This action can't be used with Element Click or Hover. This action isn't conditional based on any Poll Building Block responses or Event Properties.

The only available compound button action is URL Link.

Close button

The Close button is part of the guide layout rather than a button action. You can customize the button style. 

  1. In the Visual Design Studio, select a guide step.
  2. Hover over the Close button and select the Edit icon.

    guides_close_button_action.png
  3. In the Edit Close Button window, select Custom from the Close Button Style dropdown list.

    guides_close_button_action_custom.png
  4. Make the required style changes to the button and select Done.

    close_button_action_custom_settings.png
  5. Save and exit the Visual Design Studio.

Compound button actions

Buttons can perform up to two actions when selected. This can be useful for site navigation or opening external resources while also interacting with a guide.

Select + Action under your first action to add a compound action. Only certain combinations of button actions are allowed. For example, is you choose to dismiss the guide with a button, the only available additional action is to direct the user to a URL link.

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