A guide might not display as expected or stop displaying entirely for a variety of reasons, such as changes to your application, changes to Page rules, element targets that rely on user inputs, or custom code. This article summarizes how to interpret and work with Guide Alerts. To access this information, navigate to Guides > Guides from the left-side menu and open the Guide alerts tab.
Alerts
Alerts are generated by guide step for each alert type. Learn more about alert types in this article.
Alerts are only generated by actual visitors attempting to use the guide. An alert triggers when a guide step doesn't display for a target visitor within a specified amount of time. You can change the specified time. For information, see Alerts list configuration in this article.
A guide step can have multiple alerts, one for each alert type, and a guide can have alerts for each guide step. Each guide step can have up to three alerts, one for each alert type.
Tab overview
The Alerts list shows alerts for each guide step that failed to display. The list includes additional details:
- Type of alert
- Visitors impacted
- How often the step failed to display
The Alert Status, Mute, and Show Notes options are used in the alert review workflow to track and communicate the status of alerts that are actively being worked on and silence false alarms.
Requirements
- Web SDK version 2.41.1 or above
Respond to guide alerts
When you receive a guide alert, there's a sequence of steps required to identify and resolve issues and follow up with visitors as necessary. The action necessary to fix an alert is going to be entirely dependent on your guide, but the alert type provides a starting point. Visitors Impacted and Alert Rate indicate the severity of the issue. Visitors Impacted shows which visitors didn't see the guide step, and Alert Rate shows how often visitors using that guide didn't see that step. First Alert Date and Last Alert Date provide a time window for when the alerts occurred. Use this information to investigate the cause of the alert.
Investigate the guide step
Select Triage to mark that you're investigating the alert. This lets other users in your subscription know that this alert is being worked on and helps you keep track of alerts that haven't been reviewed yet.
- Look at the Alert Type to narrow down which part of the guide you need to check. See Alert type in this article for more information on the different types of alerts.
- Select the impacted step to open the guide details page. In the Activation section, review the Page location and Target element settings to troubleshoot the step. To change these settings, select Edit in my app to open the Visual Design Studio.
For multi-step guides, you need to open the Visual Design Studio to see the settings for a specific step. Find the impacted step in the Content Preview and hover over it to launch the Designer on that step.
3. If you have a Page Mismatch or Element Missing alert, check the Location tab in Edit Container window that opens by default when you launch the Visual Design Studio. Make sure you're on the correct page in your application and that the UI is in the correct state for the guide step. For multi-step guides such as walkthroughs, you may need to navigate to the correct point in your application before you can review or update the settings.
- To resolve a Page Mismatch alert, check if the selected page location still works. Select a new page or tag a new page if the Page Location is incorrect.
- To resolve an Element Missing alert, check if the target element is present and that the targeting rule identifies the expected element. Re-target a new element if your target element is incorrect.
- To resolve an Other alert, investigate the guide content. Check custom elements for the guide, like code blocks, to determine if a technical issue may have interrupted the guide. If you can't find any defects in the guide, look for other causes outside of the guide content and settings.
False positives
The sensitivity of guide alerts may result in false positives. Certain guide design choices that are desirable to get the right user experience may accidentally trigger an alert. For example, you can target a guide step for an element that doesn't appear until a user activates it or appears after a process runs in your application. This expected delay might still trigger an Element Missing alert if the element wasn't present before the display error threshold elapsed. In this case, nothing is technically wrong with the guide, the user or application didn't respond as expected. In these situations, you can mute the alert to hide it from the Alerts list.
Add a note
You can add notes to a single alert to inform other Pendo users in your subscription about additional context that isn't available in the Alerts list. You have details and knowledge about your app that can supplement the alert data and help other users understand the alert. If you have a team handling your display alerts, notify other users that an issue is being handled and avoid doing double work. Add an alert to a muted guide to explain why and save someone from investigating it again.
Assess the level of impact
Additional details in the Alerts list are used to measure the severity of the issue. Consider all of the available information and the significance of the guide content when making a decision on remediation and next steps. An alert during a simple feature walkthrough is unfortunate but likely doesn't introduce any risk or carry any consequences. An alert for a critical notification may require further investigation and follow-up. The Alerts list is just a tool to help you maintain situational awareness of your in-app messaging. Your root cause analysis and response processes are unique to your organization.
Visitors Impacted shows the number of visitors who did not see the indicated guide step. Click on the number to see a list of these visitors. From the list, you can click on an individual visitor ID to see their visitor timeline and identify why they might not have seen the step, like clicking the wrong element in a walkthrough or navigating to the wrong page. Download the entire visitor list as a CSV to create a segment for additional analysis or communication to the entire group of impacted users.
Alert Rate indicates the percentage of visitors who encountered an alert versus the total number of visitors who completed that step. A higher percentage indicates that most visitors didn't see the guide step as expected. A lower percentage may mean that the alert is isolated to certain visitors or is a false positive.
Alert dates can help identify the time window when a display issue impacted users. Alerts are only generated by actual visitors attempting to use the guide. The actual defect causing the alerts may have originated earlier than the first alert date and may continue to exist after the last alert date. The timing of an alert may align with changes in your app or Pendo tags that incidentally affected the guide. This can aid in finding the root cause of the display alert. It's important to change alert status to "Resolved" so other Pendo users investigating know that an alert has been addressed.
The data in the Alerts list is limited by the date range set in the filters at the top of the page. The first and last alert date will show the first and last alert within the selected date range. The actual first and last recorded alert may be outside of the selected date range. Investigate a wider date range to make sure you've found the entire duration the display issue was present if you think the underlying issue has been present for a long time.
Change the Alert Status to Resolved to indicate that the display issue has been investigated and fixed. The status remains resolved unless a new alert occurs. If another alert occurs, the status will change to Not Reviewed.
Top Stats
The Top Stats section provides a summary of the number of alerts and their current status for the selected date range and app. Muted alerts are removed from the total count.
Alerts list
The alerts list shows all alerts and impact data according to the filters selected at the top of the page. An alert occurs when a guide step doesn't display within a specified amount of time. A guide step can have multiple alerts, one for each alert type, and a guide can have alerts for each guide step.
Each alert row shows the impacted step, guide name, alert type, alert status, number of visitors impacted, alert rate, first alert date, and last alert date. The columns can be customized and additional columns can be added for total visitors, last updated, activation method, segment, and app. Each column can be sorted. Sorting by visitors impacted or alert rate helps to prioritize the most significant alerts.
Controls on each alert allow you to change the status and mute the alert. Use the options in the top of the list to show or hide muted alerts, group alerts by guide, update alert settings, and edit the displayed columns.
Alert type
Alert types indicate the likely source of the display issue. You should use the alert type as the starting point when investigating an alert.
- Page Mismatch. The guide step couldn't display because the visitor's current URL didn't match the page selected in Location settings for the guide step
- Element Missing. The guide step couldn't display because the target element selected in Location settings for the guide step wasn't present
- Other. Any cause other than Page Mismatch or Element Missing, may include issues with custom code, application errors, connectivity problems, and more.
Alert status
Alert statuses indicate if there are new alerts that haven't been reviewed or if existing alerts are being actively worked on by a Pendo user. New alerts display in the list with the Not Reviewed status, but the Triage and Resolved statuses are set manually by Pendo users to communicate the status of an alert as it's being worked.
- Not Reviewed. New alerts that haven't been worked on yet or resolved alerts that have a new alert that changes the status
- Triage. Set this status to indicate that an alert is being investigated
- Resolved. Set this status to indicate that the alert is fixed. Alerts with this status will eventually be removed from the list if there are no new alerts
Visitor impact
The Visitors Impacted, Total Visitors, and Alert Rate columns show the number of visitors affected by the display issue. Alert Rate is the percentage of impacted visitors to total visitors.
Mute alerts
If an alert has been investigated and found to be a false positive, you can mute it to hide it from the list and prevent it from appearing as Not reviewed when additional false positive alerts occur.
To mute an alert, hover over it and select the Mute Alert icon. This hides the alert from the list for all users and prevents additional alerts from making it visible again. To view muted alerts, select the Show muted alerts checkbox at the top of the list.
Notes
Communicate with other Pendo users in your subscription about an alert using notes. You may want to add a note when you start to investigate the alert, when you find the root cause, or when you're fixing the guide to let other members of your team know that the issue is being handled. It's also helpful to add context to a muted alert.
Select Show Notes to open the Guide Activity panel.
Enter your note and select Add Note.
The note is added to a feed of all notes for this alert with a date and time stamp. You can edit or delete your note as needed. An edited note will have (edited) added to the end of the message, but the date and time stamp isn't changed.
Alerts list
Show Muted Alerts displays all muted alerts in the list. The number indicates the current number of muted alerts.
Group by Guide groups alerts for steps within the same guide together so all alerts for a single guide can be managed collectively. Alerts are generated by guide step for each alert type. Each guide step could have up to three alerts, one for each alert type. Grouping by guide can consolidate lots of alerts together. Grouping by guide limits the effectiveness of sorting columns. Alerts are sorted within the context of the guide groups and it can be more difficult to identify the most significant display issues with this view.
Alert Settings contains the Display Error Threshold setting which controls how much time should elapse before a display alert is triggered. The default time is 10 seconds.
Column Settings are used to add, remove, and change the order of the columns in the list. Click on a column header to sort by that column.
Frequently asked questions
Can guide display alerts predict when guides will break?
No. Alerts are reactive and don't catch guide display issues before they occur. Visitor interaction with a guide triggers an alert. We don't currently have the ability to automatically test published guides.
I have a display alert, but I've tested the guide and there's nothing wrong with it.
There is likely the occasional false positive when the guide is working properly. The error might have been triggered by unexpected behavior such as a network error, use of code blocks, or complex activation settings. Muting an "Other" alert type to silence false positives won't silence other alert types and you'll be still be notified if there are issues with the page or element targets. You can periodically check muted alerts to make sure there haven't been any significant increases in the alert rate.