Salesforce introduced In-App Guidance to take your Lightning experience to the next level. With the fairly recent addition of step-by-step Walkthroughs, this feature remains a solid out-of-the-box option for Salesforce Admins looking to increase user adoption and seamlessly enable users with just a few clicks.
In this guide, we will explore exactly what In-App Guidance is, and how it can help you, as a Salesforce Admin, achieve a great user experience in a declarative manner.
What Is Salesforce In-App Guidance?
Salesforce In-App Guidance is an out-of-the-box tool that empowers Salesforce Admins (and power users with the Manage Prompts and View All Profiles permissions) to create custom training for user enablement or onboarding, displayed on Salesforce Lightning pages as prompts.
Here’s the big advantage of this functionality – it does not require any programmatic knowledge, as it’s a declarative tool that can be used in next to no time. In addition, it can be filtered to appear based on profiles and permissions for dedicated user groups. We’ll take a deep dive into both of the available types: Single Prompt and Walkthrough.
If you have been paying attention as you navigate your way around Salesforce, you may have noticed that this is something that even they use within the product – for example, to drive adoption for Einstein Search or to remind you what is searchable in a List View. Cool, right?
Note: Take a closer look over the In-App content available directly from Salesforce, to avoid duplication through your custom In-App Guidance prompts.
Single Prompt
Simply put, the single prompt is actually a small box that will pop up for your users on supported Lightning pages for sharing a training link, news, or specific information. Users will be able to take an action, dismiss the prompt, or even snooze it if desired.
- Floating Prompt: This can be positioned as an informative box on the screen, and in my opinion, is best used for a general message or perhaps a link users should click – of course related to the page they are on.
- Docked Prompt: This appears at the bottom corner of the page, and is the type of prompt that is perfect for including more information pertaining to the topic you choose to build it for, links, and even videos. Users can minimize the window and maximize it if they need it again.
- Targeted Prompt: This has to be tied to a specific element on screen, and it’s an easy way to call for action. For example, this type of prompt could remind users to use Global Actions or perhaps access the Help menu if it has been recently customized.
Walkthroughs
In comparison to the Single Prompts, Walkthroughs are the natural next step when talking about user enablement – a series of up to ten prompts (either of the same type or different) appearing on screen in sequence as the user clicks through them. As a picture is worth a thousand words (let alone a video), let’s take a quick look at an example using all three prompt types!
How to Use In-App Guidance
Making use of In-App Guidance is as straightforward as it sounds, ensuring a quick turnaround for all impacted end users. As you can imagine by now, the sky’s the limit when it comes to what (or who) this functionality can be used for – there is definitely information to share with any user group in Salesforce, from sales to support to marketing.
Let’s take it step by step, and go through each part of getting In-App Guidance set up for your org!
Setup & In-App Guidance Builder
As you may have already guessed, navigating to Setup is the first step along your In-App Guidance road! This is where you will create the prompts, see all the existing ones, as well as the free ones left to use (be they from managed packages or created within the org), and choose how often the prompts show up (hours).
Get Hands On
Since we have already gone through the basics, let’s now create a Walkthrough using In-App Guidance! Note that the Simple Prompt creation is very similar; the only difference being that, as mentioned above, the walkthrough contains multiple prompts.
The example below will be a walkthrough to showcase some functionalities on the homepage of any Lightning application the users could be leveraging. Of course, this can be done on Record Pages as well, depending on the use case you choose to use the prompts for.
Prompt Users to Access Tailored Resources
As I mentioned above, you can actually use any of the prompts to redirect users to a training platform, or even a video. You can make use of various URLs or pictures to support the instructions in the message.
In the example below, I chose to embed a YouTube video (available for docked prompts) – users with the System Administrator profile would be a great audience. I also included a hyperlink within the Rich Text field where the text can be inputted when setting up the prompt.
Walkthrough for Existing Processes
Even though the example in the tutorial above is very simple and focused on the homepage, the Walkthroughs can be leveraged to offer refreshers on existing processes as well – for example, Opportunity creation or, why not, Lead conversion.
Of course, these become extremely useful when there are changes in a process they are already very familiar with – just make sure they are aware and take the necessary steps.
Testing Your Prompts
If you went through the interactive tutorial above, you may have noticed that once the walkthrough was completed, you could then choose its name to trigger it to appear on the page and test it out.
You can navigate to different Lightning pages or apps, and you will also be able to choose either the Simple Prompts or Walkthroughs available to test them out.
Also, keep in mind that you can access this testing view through the In-App Guidance Settings page, by clicking Start Testing.
Monitor the Usage
Once either prompts or Walkthroughs are created, they will be displayed in a list containing key information, including the number of views as well as the percentage of completion. Once the record is in use, the Prompt Actions object can also be used as the basis for a custom report type for an even deeper dive on the usage metrics, including how many times a user dismissed the prompts.
You can also reset the metrics from the Setup page in case you make any changes, or deactivate/reactivate the records as needed.
Considerations for In-App Guidance
As with any Salesforce functionality, there are a few considerations and capabilities to keep in mind:
- The first three custom Walkthroughs are free – afterwards, MyTrailhead (Sales Enablement) has to be purchased.
- Salesforce recommends a maximum of 500 prompts and 500 walkthroughs in the org, however, this is not a hard limit.
- In-App Guidance is only available within the Lightning Experience.
- Currently, the In-App Guidance prompts being displayed are controlled depending on the profile and permissions. There isn’t a possibility to filter on role or territory.
- Walkthroughs can have a maximum of ten steps each.
- Check out the In-App Guidance Considerations page or FAQs for more details.
In-App Gamification with Learning Paths
In tandem with the highly customizable In-App Guidance functionality, the Guidance Center and Learning Paths can be the next step to enhance your user experience even more. Leverage the trustworthy Trailhead modules, myTrailhead, or any custom resource of your choice (such as videos) in a cohesive manner, following each (or all) user groups’ Salesforce journey and training.
Similar to In-App Guidance, you can pick and choose when these resources appear, when they should be completed by, and of course, who is accountable for completing them. These can be accessed either from the Learning Home or Trailhead logo at the top of the screen.
Ready to see how Trailhead badges and valuable knowledge can be earned right within your Salesforce instance? Check out the short overview below to get started.
And yes, even if you (or your users) make a start on a Trailhead module but don’t have a chance to complete it in one sitting, your progress will be saved to your account just as it is on the actual Trailhead website.
As always, make sure you take a look over the considerations Salesforce has highlighted for using Learning Paths, along with these recommended best practices.
Summary
In-App Guidance is definitely a feature you should try out today, as there are always users to enable, as well as new tips and tricks to share to increase productivity. You can start using the functionality for free and also benefit from the three available walkthroughs – it’s easy to get started, and could be a quick win as far as the user experience goes.
Don’t forget to check out the new improvements to both In-App Guidance and Guidance Center in the dedicated section from the Winter ’23 release notes.