Automate the feature release process with LaunchDarkly

Product teams often want to roll out new features iteratively, measuring adoption and collecting feedback from a subset of users before making the feature generally available. Pendo and LaunchDarkly have partnered to help our joint customers use Pendo to better target and engage users during this process.

Pendo data, such as product adoption, renewal data, and ARR can help target the rollout of features through LaunchDarkly. Additionally, after a feature is rolled out, you can use Pendo to target in-app guidance, ease onboarding, and maximize usage. Once users start engaging with the feature, Pendo can provide usage insights through its advanced analytics. Together, this allows you to:

• Increase the percentage of users that engage with the new feature you're testing.
• Streamline the release process by tying feature flags to in-app guidance.
• Auto track and explore relevant metrics and analytics about the usage of the new feature.

Prerequisites

• LaunchDarkly 
• Pendo with API access
• Engineering and product stakeholders working together

Process overview

After you've determined the new feature you want to roll out to a subset of highly-active users behind a feature flag:

1. In Pendo, create a segment with the behavioral characteristics of the users you want to roll the feature out to
2. Create a Visitor Report that reports on users in the segment you just created.
3. Evaluate the feature flag for users using Pendo segment membership.
4. Create a new feature flag in LaunchDarkly and add the Pendo Visitor Report ID for that segment to the custom properties.
5. Create a Pendo in-app guide to drive engagement and education of your feature to the segment of users you created.
6. Analyze the product usage analytics to understand if that feature is successful and can be rolled out to the entire customer base. 

This article provides detailed instructions for the Pendo side of this process, and an overview for other steps in the process. See the LaunchDarkly and relevant API documentation for full instructions on anything that doesn't involve the Pendo UI.

Step 1. Create a segment in Pendo

 To create a segment with the behavioral characteristics of the users you want to roll a feature out to:

1. Navigate to People > Segments from the left-side menu in Pendo.
2. Choose + Create Segment in the top-right of the page.
3. Create a meaningful name for your segment.
4. Select + Add Rules.
5. Use the dropdown menus to configure your rule.
6. Optionally, add additional rules using the AND/OR logic. 
7. Select Create Segment in the bottom-right corner when done.

For more information on creating segments, see the Segments article.

Step 2. Create a Visitor Report

 To report on the segment you created in Step 1:

1. Navigate to People > Visitors from the left-side menu in Pendo.
2. Choose your segment from the first dropdown menu at the top of the page.
3. At the top of the Visitors table, underneath the graph, select + Create Visitor Report.
4. Create a meaningful name for your report.
5. Check that the App (if you have multiple applications), Segment, Account, and Date Range information are accurate. 
6. Optionally, add, remove, and rearrange columns to show the data you need in the resulting table.
7. Select Create Report in the bottom-right corner when done. 

This takes you to the Visitor Report page for your new report.

Step 3. Use the Pendo segment to evaluate the feature flag

First, your LaunchDarkly developer must use the Pendo segment to evaluate the feature flag for a user. Below is an example in Ruby:

In this example, the user_from_pendo method takes the feature flag ID and the unique Pendo Visitor ID.

If not cached, an API call is made to LaunchDarkly to fetch the Pendo Visitor Report ID custom property, and then an API call is made to Pendo to fetch the list of users in the Visitor Report, specifically, members of the segment.

A user is constructed with a property called shopping-cart-pendo and its value is set to true or false depending on whether the user is in the Pendo segment. The LaunchDarkly variation method is called and evaluates if that user should see the shopping cart, defaulting to false.

This starts sending data about the feature, like the property shopping-cart-pendo, into LaunchDarkly.

Step 4. Create the feature flag in LaunchDarkly

Create the feature flag in LaunchDarkly and to add the Pendo Visitor Report ID for that segment to the Custom Properties under Settings. The Pendo Visitor Report ID can be found at the end of the report's URL in your browser, which might look something like the following: app.pendo.io/visitorlist/4WoYEaYCkASTfhA5mCx6N4IHIIo.

Next, under Targeting, add a rule that specifies that if shopping-cart-pendo is one of true, then SERVE is true:

Select Save Changes to make the feature flag live, targeting users in the Pendo segment.

Step 5. Create and target a Pendo in-app guide to your segment

To increase the percentage of users that engage with the new feature you're testing, create an in-app guide that targets your segment of users.

1. Navigate to Guides > Guides from the left-side menu in Pendo.
2. Choose + Create Guide in the top-right of the page.
3. Choose the appropriate Application (if you have multiple applications) and Guide Category from the dropdown menus at the top.
4. Select a guide layout from your Saved Layouts or Default Layouts.
5. Create a meaningful name for your guide.
6. Select or create a Product Area from the second dropdown menu under the title for your guide to determine where you want your guide to appear.
7. Select Manage in my app in the top-right of the Content section.
8. Enter the URL of the application that you want to launch a guide over and then select Launch Designer. This opens the Visual Design Studio over your application in a new tab in your browser so that you can edit your guide.
9. Design and launch your guide using the instructions outlined in Create a Guide.

Step 6. Analyze product usage analytics

In Pendo, analyze your product usage analytics in the Visitor Report you created in Step 2 to understand whether your feature has been successful and to determine whether you want to roll the feature out to the entire customer base. You can also use other reports in the Behavior tab, such as Data Explorer, Retention, Paths, and Funnels to understand user behavior.