Overview

The Guide Trigger Settings control how and when guides display to users. You can manage these through the options in the Trigger section of the Guide Settings page: Auto-Trigger, Trigger when an event occurs, and Custom Triggers. Auto-Trigger and event-based triggers can be used separately or together.

Auto-Trigger (on)

The Guide will automatically start when the Auto-Trigger is activated as the visitor lands on the pre-set target URL.

When turned on, you can set the Appear Frequency using one of the options below. These conditions will only be applied if the current user is on the correct segment and targeted page.

• Only Once: Guide won't be displayed anymore once seen.
• Once in a Session: Guide will be shown on each new browser session. A new session is defined when you access a website on a new browser tab/window.
• Once in 1 day: Guide will be displayed only once a day.
• Once in 7 days: Guide will be displayed only once a week.
• Once in 30 days: Guide will be displayed only once a month.
• Once in 90 days: Guide will be displayed only once in three months.
• Always: Guide will always be displayed to your users.
  

Note: If you haven't enabled User Identification, and your users access your website through a different device, incognito mode, or clear their browser cache, they will be seen as new users. Thus, if you've set your Guide to be shown only once, these users will see it again.

Display Priority

While previewing multiple Guides on the same page, they won't show up simultaneously, and their order of appearance is not predictable.

This option decides which auto-triggered material takes precedence when conflicts arise with multiple materials.

Stop Trigger

You can pre-define when you want the Guide to stop being displayed.

It can be after the user sees the Guide a certain amount of times, when they complete the Guide, or when a specific goal you have set is reached.

Trigger when an event occurs

You can show a guide whenever a specific event happens, for example, when a user clicks your notification bell. This works independently of Auto-Trigger, so you can use it on its own or together with it. This option is available for Guides, Banners, and Surveys.

Before you start: make sure the event exists

The event you want to use must be listed under Settings → Data → Events. Any event listed there can be selected, including custom events, page view events, no-code element tracking events, and UserGuiding material events.

If the event you need isn't there yet, you can create it without code:

1. Go to Settings → Data → Events and click + New Event → No-Code Element Tracking.
2. The UserGuiding extension opens on your page. Select the element you want to track and give the event a name (e.g. notifbellclick).
3. Save the event and go back to the panel.
4. Click Publish Changes and refresh your page.
   
   

Setting up the trigger

1. Open your guide and go to the Configuration tab.
2. In the Trigger section, check Trigger when an event occurs.
3. Under Choose an Event, select the event that should trigger the guide.
4. Under Set the Appear Frequency, choose how often the guide should appear when the event happens. The options are the same as in Appear Frequency Options.
5. Save and publish your guide.

Using it together with Auto-Trigger

You can enable Auto-Trigger and Trigger when an event occurs at the same time. Each one has its own Appear Frequency, so you can combine them. For example:

• Auto-Trigger → Only Once: the guide shows automatically on the user's first visit.
• Trigger when an event occurs → Always: after that, the guide stays available on demand whenever the user clicks a specific element.
  

⚠️ Tip: If your guide doesn't appear after you set up a new event, make sure you've clicked Publish Changes and refreshed the page. New event trackers can take a few minutes (up to ~5 minutes) to start working.

Auto-Trigger (off)

When Auto-Trigger is turned off, your Guide won't show up unless you trigger it with one of the methods found on the Custom Triggers button.

You can reach all the options you need to custom-trigger your guides, namely the JavaScript API, Guide Hyperlink, and Other Available Triggers.

Say you'd like a Guide to show up once the visitor clicks on a specific CTA button. You could easily custom-trigger this Guide using the JavaScript API option. You can find the JS script under the placeholder here.

Please visit this article for more information on custom guide-triggering using JS APIs.

If you'd like a guide to starting playing with a hyperlink you provide for your end-users. Then, under the Guide Hyperlink section, you can find the hyperlink URL to trigger your guides using this custom method.

You can find further information on Guide Hyperlinks here.

Lastly, on the Custom Trigger Options slider, you will see the Other Available Triggers, such as a Checklist, Guide, or Hotspot. This means that your guides can also be activated within those different onboarding materials.

The most prominent usage of custom triggers with this method is the Checklists. As you can see here, once the visitor clicks on a guide on this Checklist, the related Guide will be triggered and display.

Here you can find further information on Checklists.

Additionally, a guide can also be triggered within a guide. Very Inception-like, right? Not that complicated, though.

You will see a "Trigger a Guide" option while editing a button within a guide or a hotspot to trigger another guide within the onboarding content. As you can edit your Guides to be custom-triggered using this option, you can find here on the Custom Trigger Options slider which other guides and hotspots your Guide is triggered.