Block all Pendo guides in specific situations

This article explains how to block all Pendo guides from displaying in various situations, including for specific customers, environments, or pages. These recommendations apply to web applications where Pendo is installed via the install script or the browser extension.

If your goal is to selectively show or hide specific guides, use Segments instead.

Block all guides for a specific customer

You can prevent all Pendo guides from displaying for a specific account or visitor.

1. Go to People > Accounts, then select the account you want to update.
2. In the Pendo Settings section, find the checkbox labeled Hide web guides from this account.
3. Select the checkbox to block all guides for this account.

Note: If you don’t see this setting, contact Pendo Support and ask them to enable the subscription setting: Guide Exclude List per Visitor and Account.

To block guides for a specific visitor instead:

1. Go to People > Visitors, then select the visitor you want to update.
2. In the Pendo Settings section, select the checkbox Hide guides from this visitor.

You can also enable or disable these settings via the API. For more information, see Opt-out a Visitor or Account From All Guide Display.

Block all guides in a specific environment (install script only)

You can disable all Pendo guides in a specific environment or app instance by modifying the Pendo install script to add guides.disabled: true. 

1. Ask your developer to update the pendo.initialize() configuration in your Pendo install script.
2. Add the guides.disabled flag set to true:

pendo.initialize({
 visitor: { ... },
 account: { ... },
 guides: {
   disabled: true
 }
});

This prevents guides from displaying wherever this snippet is installed. See a more detailed example configuration here.

Block all guides on a specific page (install script only)

You can disable all Pendo guides from displaying on a specific page in your application using the function pendo.stopGuides().

Ask your developer to call the pendo.stopGuides() function on the relevant page.

If your application uses a single-page application framework, you should call pendo.startGuides() when navigating to a page where guides should reappear. This additional function is not necessary if your application uses a multi-page application framework.

Block all Pendo functionality for a customer or environment

You can modify the Pendo installation to completely disable Pendo, including both guides and analytics, for specific customers or specific environments only.

Install script

• Ask your developer to wrap pendo.initialize() in conditional logic so it only runs in the environments or for the users you want to track. See Conditionally initialize Pendo for more information.
• Ask your developer to remove the Pendo install script from environments where you don’t want Pendo to load.

Extension

• Deploy the extension only to customers who should have Pendo functionality. For more details, see the IT guide to deploying the Pendo launcher.
• Use domain restrictions to control where the extension is active. See Add and edit domains for more details.

Important: If you want to temporarily disable a web app or extension app, follow the steps in Disable a web app or Disable an extension app instead.