Permalinks
Learn how to use permalinks to relaunch Appcues experiences on demand.
Table of Contents
What are Permalinks?
Permalinks are an extremely powerful and versatile way to use Appcues. They’ll allow you to relaunch flows at will for testing or for users. Similarly, they can be used to launch Checklists and launch NPS if you have, say, a targeted email.
By clicking a permalink, Appcues content will be manually called so when the user is redirected, the content will also be fired based on the permalink.
All frequency, audience and page targeting are ignored when content is manually triggered by a Permalink.
How to get a Permalink
Flows
Permalinks can be automatically generated for a Flow or they can be built.
They can be generated by heading to the settings of a flow and then clicking the “Permalink” button. This permalink will be generated by taking the build URL and then appending the proper ending to make the call to fire the particular Appcues flow.The flow must be published for the permalink button to show.
When you click the Permalink button, you'll get the options below. You can use the generated permalink and we'll also provide you with an HTML button that you can embed if your app.
Checklists and NPS
However, you’re not tied to just using these generated permalinks. If you have a flow you’d like to show elsewhere for a user, or an email campaign, you can create your own permalinks. These permalinks are generated by appending the following formatting to the end of a URL:
?appcue=CONTENT_ID_HERE
The CONTENT_ID_HERE can be different experiences. Supported experiences include Checklist, NPS and Flow. The ID of any of these can be found in the URL of the settings/analytics of a checklist or flow, while NPS ID is found in the URL while editing the NPS.
An example of a permalink would be the below. This is a real permalink, go ahead and click it to see it in action.
Use Cases with Permalinks
Flows
- Allow users to relaunch a product tour or announcement
- Create a chain of flows for a user experience
When creating flows that are only set to show using a permalink, select the “Show manually” trigger so that there won't be unintended qualifications for the flow when a user reaches the page
Checklists
- Permalinks can be used to relaunch checklists for users that have dismissed them
- Permalinks can be used to fire the next checklist in a Flow as desired if you’re using multiple checklists. Simply put a permalink in the button of the last step of a flow that’s labeled to go to a URL.
NPS
- Send an NPS prompt through email that will prompt the user with NPS when they load the web page (this will not be shown in the email client/browser)
Notes about Permalinks
- Content must be published live for Permalinks to work.
- Permalinks will ignore frequency targeting.
- Permalinks will ignore all targeting for NPS, Flows, and Checklists. Therefore, if your share a Permalink with users who you’re not intending to see particular Appcues content, they will still receive the content.
- Permalinked checklists will show on every page until dismissed and show for users that are not targeted.
- Permalinks will take priority to show over all other Appcues content.
- Users with a permalink will be able to trigger the content as many times as they want, this includes NPS.
- When creating your permalink, your finished URL should only contain a single ?. If there's already a ? in your URL, you should append the Appcues permalink with & instead of ?. If, for example, your URL looks like https://www.appcues.com/dashboard?page=3, your finished permalink will be https://www.appcues.com/dashboard?page=3&appcue=CONTENT_ID_HERE.