This article outlines how to create a mobile guide using the Visual Design Studio for mobile.
Visit Pendo Academy for a video on how to create a guide.
Requirements
To use the Visual Design Studio, you need one of the following permissions:
- Pendo Administrator Permissions
- Pendo User Permissions with at least one of the following:
- Create Guides from Layouts
- Manage Published Guides
- Create Guides & Layouts from Scratch
Create a guide
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Ensure that the mobile application is integrated with SDK 2.x. Verify this by going to Subscription Settings. An Integrated label should be visible on an integrated App.
- In the left-hand menu, go to Guides > Guides.
- In the Guides page, select Create Guide.
- Select the relevant mobile app from the dropdown menu.
- Select any available mobile layout templates and rename the guide.
Tip: As you'll most likely have multiple guides, it’s best practice to set naming conventions and use groups for easier searches.
Customize guide content
After you create the guide, in the guide's Settings page, select Manage in my app in the Content area header.
Tip: You can hover over the guide preview to see the Manage in my App option to launch the Visual Design Studio.
Edits to the guide can be made from within the Edit Container box. The container's default settings are set by the app's theme.
- To edit the container settings, change the theme to Custom.
- After the initial edits are made, select Done.
- Hover over the placeholder items within the guide preview and select to edit.
- To add a new building block to the guide, (button, title, image, text, poll, etc), hover between items until a blue line displays.
- Select the 'plus' sign to add a building block.
Choose guide transition animation
Select how a guide transitions in and out of each step.
To change the transition, go to Edit Container > Transitions > Animations Type and select animation type, duration, and direction where applicable. In addition to the default transition type, which is None, you can also select Fade, Pop, or Slide.
Tip: For multi-step, full-screen, or popup guides, we recommend using the slide animation.
Note: Transitions are currently not available for tooltips.
Activate your guide
When you create a guide, you need to decide how it's activated.
Available activation options can be found in the action bar in Activation Settings.
Visit the Pendo Academy for a video on tagging Features in your mobile app.
App Launch
The guide launches after your mobile app is opened. Ideal for survey guides and announcements that aren't page-specific, such as new user onboarding or showing what's new on the new app version. The guide is launched to segmented visitors as soon as the startSession method is called and the mobile session starts.
- Repeat Guide Display. Shows a guide to a visitor even if they've completed or dismissed it.
Page View
The guide launches after your visitor goes to a specific page in your app. Ideal for page-specific onboarding or Feature announcements that are page-specific, such as guiding new visitors on a specific page in your app, or notifying visitors that a specific screen is under maintenance. Select the pages in the app where the guide appears. Either select an already-tagged Page or tag a new Page by selecting the Tag New Page button. In this case, a device must be connected to capture a new Page. For more information, see Connect a mobile device. If you select multiple pages, the guide is activated when one of them is viewed for the first time.
Note: Different guide steps can have different pages set for activation. Deep links or organic user navigation with tooltips are recommended to direct the user to the next step in the guide on a different Page.
Target Element
The guide launches after a visitor selects a specific Feature in your app. Ideal for Feature-specific onboarding, Feature-specific surveys and activating your Help Center. The mobile app doesn't support the option to activate a guide from a badge.
after selecting the desired Page, select an element that'll activate the guide by selecting it in the screenshot. If the UI element hasn't been saved, you'll be prompted to save the new UI element.
Track Events
Ideal for troubleshooting after a user receives a specific server response and launching guides after a process is finished:
- Based on track event. When the Track Event that equals the selected track event is called. Select the Track Event to be used as the guide trigger. When the Track Event is called, the guide is displayed to the segmented visitor. This allows you to launch guides whenever and wherever you want, if on a process completion, server response, and so on.
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Based on track event property. Select the Track Event property type, operator, and value to be used to launch the guide.
See Track Events for more information.
Launch Guide From Guide
To launch a guide from another guide, you don't need to set a specific activation method. You can leave all activation methods unselected. This option can also be combined with other activation methods.
Test the guide on a device
It's extremely important to test how the guide looks on an actual mobile device prior to publishing because the Visual Design Studio provides a web preview of the guide.
To test the guide, select Test.
Note: If your device isn't connected, you'll need to connect your device. For more information, see Connect your mobile device.
During the test, Pendo disregards segments and throttling rules and shows the guide each time. Any target elements, pages, and activation methods set as part of the guide must be present for this preview method.
After you finish working on the guide, save your changes using the top right-hand Save button and select Exit to leave the designer, or select the dropdown icon next to Save and select Save and Exit.
Visit the Pendo Academy for a video on testing your guide.
Segment and schedule a guide
When you’re satisfied with your guide, go to your Guide’s details page to adjust the guide’s segment and scheduling.
- Select the segment of users who'll receive the guides. The default segment is ‘Everyone’. You can see how many users are included in your selected segment and the number of eligible visitors.
- Schedule when your Guide will go live (and, if needed, when it'll no longer be active).
There may be instances when the number of eligible visitors is smaller than your segment. This may be because some of your users are still using an old app version with an old SDK version. In this case, Pendo's new features may not be available to these users.
Important: Guide segments include visitors that have been excluded from analytics unless explicitly not included in the segment.
Visit the Pendo Academy for a video on segmenting your guide.
Publish and validate a guide
To publish your guide, update the guide’s status to Public. Because there is no staging option for mobile guides, never publish a mobile guide without testing its full flow on a mobile device. If you're included in the guide segment and want to see the guide on your device after publishing, you'll need to:
- Disconnect your device from Pendo by selecting the Pendo FAB on your device, and then selecting Exit pairing mode.
- Close your app and relaunch it (guides are sent to the device at the beginning of the "session").
- If you are included in the guide's segment, you'll be able to see the guide in your app by triggering the guide's "activation" criteria.
- Note that after a user sees the guide, they won't see it again, unless set to "show every time".
Frequently asked questions
Why is my guide not displaying after it is made public?
Regardless of the activation type of your guides, your application can only determine if an end-user qualifies for a new guide if that guide is included in the guide payload. The payload updates only when one of the following occurs:
- `startSession` is called.
- By default, the application is left in the background for 30 minutes or longer. This time period can be configured per app. Contact Pendo support if you want to change the default configuration.
As such, because `startSession` is usually called when you close out of your app and reopen it (though ultimately your devs determine when it's called, so this may not hold true for your app), we recommend trying to close out of your app, reopen it, and then trigger your newly-published guide. If this doesn't work, you might either need to reach out to your devs to get clarification on when `startSession` is called, or contact Pendo support.
Should I use the same API key in both test devices and production environments?
While not mandatory, it's recommended to replicate the exact customer experience, unless testing for a future release. Mobile apps use the same API key in testing and production (unless you create a separate development application in Pendo), and there won't be a distinction in the data collected if you do use the same SDK/API key. This can affect your analytics. However, you do have the option to utilize the Exclude list to filter your own data from analytics. If you need an API for each dev and production environment, contact your Pendo account representative.
Can I test a mobile guide with only an IP address?
Currently there is no out-of-the-box option to do this. You can create a test segment that segments users to the development app version.
What counts as a guide being dismissed and not eligible to show again?
In some cases, your users may put your app in the background on their phone by pressing the home button on Android or swiping up/Touch ID button on iOS. When this happens, if a guide is displayed, the guide won't be dismissed and is expected to display again when they launch your app again. Your guide is considered dismissed (and not expected to show again) when selecting a button with a dismiss action, selecting the x buttons in the corner, completing the last step of the guide, or by closing the app.
Note: Selecting the Back button on an Android device dismisses popup guides.