Before an onsite message goes live, you can preview it on a copy of your site and check all its texts in one place. When it's ready, you publish it, and you can pause it, copy it, or follow its changes later. This article describes the tools in the legacy editor for previewing, reviewing, publishing, and managing your onsite messages.
Preview a message
- Open the message from Onsite > Messages, and select Save Changes. The preview always shows the last saved version.
- Select Preview in the header and choose what to preview:
- Initial message: the message as a new visitor sees it.
- Friend's initial message: the friend's message in a refer-a-friend campaign. This option and Friend's return visit are only shown when Referrals is on.
- Return visit: the message as a visitor sees it when they come back, for example from a reminder email.
- Friend's return visit: the same, for a friend.
- The preview opens in a new browser tab, with the bar Preview mode · Not visible to your visitors at the top. Select the minimized widget to open the message and go through its steps.
The preview shows the message on the site's Background image for previews, if the site has one. To make the preview look more like your website, upload a screenshot of it in the site settings. See Site settings in the Onsite Manager (Legacy).
Use the device toggle in the header before you preview, to check the message on both mobile and desktop.
Review all texts
Select Review Copy in the header to see every text in the message in one table, including texts that aren't shown on the step tabs, such as the verification email. This makes it easy to proofread the message or have it translated.
- Use the search field, or filter by step, to find a text.
- Edit a text directly in the Copy column.
- Select Export copy to download all texts, for example to send them for translation, and Import copy to bring them back.
- Select Save to keep your changes, or Cancel.
Find and replace texts
To change the same word or phrase everywhere in the message, select the ⋯ menu in the header and then Find. Enter the text to find, select Search, enter the new text under Replace with, and select Replace.
Publish a message
- On the Scheduling card, set a Start date. Choose the current time to publish straight away, or a later date to schedule the message.
- Select Publish/Schedule in the header. The message is published without a confirmation step.
If the start date is missing, the message isn't published and the Scheduling card turns red. Set the date and try again.
A published message first gets the state Stand By, and shortly after Live. On a live message, the header shows Pause and Publish changes instead of Save Changes. Changes you make to a live message are shown to visitors as soon as you select Publish changes.
To test a message on your live website before visitors can see it, give it a script tag that your website never calls, publish it, and test it. Then change the script tag when you're ready.
Pause a message
Select Pause in the header of a live message, or Pause in the ⋯ menu of its row in the list, and confirm. While a message is paused, new visitors don't see it, but links in confirmation and reminder emails and in shared referral links still work.
To pause a message for a set period, use Pause from and Pause to on the Scheduling card.
Message states
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Unpublish | A draft that has never been published. Visitors don't see it. In the State filter, this is called Draft. |
| Scheduled | Published with a start date in the future. |
| Stand By | Just published, and about to go live. In the State filter, this is called Standing by. |
| Live | Shown to visitors who match its site, script tag, and targeting. |
| Paused | Not shown to new visitors, but existing links still work. |
| Suspended | Stopped by the system, for example when it has run low on unique codes. |
| Expired | Past its end date. An expired message can't be published again. |
Next to the state, the list shows the message's activity: Online, Offline, or NoActivity. A live message shows Offline until visitors trigger it. The Activity filter uses the options Active, Low activity, and No activity.
Manage messages in the list
In Onsite > Messages, select the ⋯ button at the end of a message's row:
- Edit: opens the message in the editor.
- Copy: creates a copy of the message, named with "(Copy)" at the end. Use it to make a variant for an A/B test, or a similar message for another site.
- Publish or Pause: publishes a draft, or pauses a live message.
- Delete: deletes the message.
- Change Log: shows the message's history (see below).
- Search: looks up a visitor, for example by email, and shows the reward codes the message has given them, with their issue and expiry dates. Use it when a customer contacts you about a missing code.
Follow the changes
Select the ⋯ menu in the header and then Change Log(s), or Change Log in the list, to see who changed the message and when. The log has two tabs: Onsite message logs for changes to the settings and texts, and Onsite message status logs for changes to the state. Select an entry to see its details.
Opening the change log from the editor leaves the editor. Save your changes first, or they're lost.
To download all the message's settings as a file, select Export to CSV in the ⋯ menu in the header.