Overview
This article will explain how UserGuiding's algorithm works while checking redirection URLs and how you can optimize these settings for your onboarding materials.
Checking Targeting Conditions
When a Guide is triggered, UserGuiding's algorithm checks if a page's URL matches the previewed Guide's Targeting conditions. This control prevents walkthroughs from triggering on the wrong page.
When the Targeting conditions match the current URL, the Guide is triggered without any problem.
When the Guide's Targeting conditions do not match the current URL, the end-user will be automatically redirected to the URL you have entered on the "Redirection URL" field on the Guide's settings.
The latter case can only happen with the Custom Trigger Scenarios. Custom Trigger Scenarios are Guide List, Checklist, Resource Center, Permalink, and JS Trigger.
What happens when I turn Redirection Off?
If you do not want any automatic URL changes caused by the onboarding material activities, you can always turn the Redirection OFF.
When it is OFF, there will be no Redirection (no URL change) when the targeting conditions do not match the current page URL. This also means the Guide will not function if those conditions do not match the current page URL.
How to adjust the Redirection Settings for a Guide
Log in to the Panel.
Navigate to the Guides tab.
Choose the Guide you want to edit and go to its Settings page.
Scroll down to the Redirection section.
The Redirection option for a Guide will be turned ON by default, and the Redirection URL will be the exact URL where you have created the first step of your Guide.
Example
Guide A Targeting Rule: URL > contains > /home
Guide A Redirection URL: https://userguiding.com/home
Current URL: https://userguiding.com/features
When Guide A is triggered, the targeting condition will not match the current URL, and the end-user will be automatically redirected to the URL https://userguiding.com/home to start the Guide.
Redirection URLs with user-specific path
If your platform's URL path is user-specific, you can add user attributes to Redirection URLs.
To add them, you need to create custom attributes first. You can learn how to send user attributes to UserGuiding here.
Example
If you want to redirect your end-users to a dynamic URL that includes their user IDs, you can add these attributes in the URL as below.
In (i.e., https://sampleurl.com/{{user_id}}/menu), where “user_id” is a user attribute.
Note: When using a dynamic URL, you won't be able to redirect to it when you click on the "Open in Extension" shortcut button from the Panel. Instead, you need to go to the corresponding URL in your platform and then open the Chrome extension through the extension icon to preview the content.