Actions

An Action defines what happens when the Contexts of a Contextual Action evaluate to true. Actions are the "then" part of the rule, determining which piece of Userlane content is delivered and how it behaves.

Every Action has two required parts:

1. Content target: the specific piece of Userlane content the Action applies to (e.g. a particular Guide, Tooltip, or Message)

2. Activation type: the behaviour to execute on that content (Start, Load, Show, or Hide)

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Action types by content type

Not every activation type is available for every content type. Here's the full matrix:

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Activation types explained

Start (Guides)

Starts the selected Guide. The Guide plays through normally from the beginning.

Optional: start from a specific step. You can choose a specific step to start from, which is useful for skipping an introductory section when the user has already seen it. If no step is specified, the Guide starts from step 1.

Guide rules:

• Only one Guide action is allowed per Contextual Action.

• A Contextual Action containing a Guide cannot also contain Tooltip, Validator, Message, Announcement, or Beacon actions. If you need to deliver a Guide and another content type from the same conditions, create separate Contextual Actions with the same Contexts.

• A Guide will not start while another Guide is actively playing. The player waits until the current Guide finishes or is dismissed.

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Load (Tooltips, Validators)

Prepares the content so it is ready to appear when its standard trigger conditions are met. The content is not immediately visible; it is placed in a "ready" state.

For example, a Loaded Tooltip will display when the user hovers over its target element. A Loaded Validator will display when the user interacts with the relevant input field.

Tooltip viewport requirement: A Loaded Tooltip will only display when its target element is visible in the viewport. This is automatic and does not need to be configured.

Use Load when you want to conditionally make content available without forcing it onto the screen.

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Show (Messages)

Displays the Message immediately when the Contextual Action conditions are met, without requiring any additional user interaction.

Messages are displayed in a pop-up view regardless of whether the user has previously seen the content. The Message is considered dismissed when the user explicitly closes the pop-up.

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Hide (Tooltips, Validators)

The opposite of Load. Prevents the content from being loaded entirely, rather than hiding something that is already visible. The content is never prepared or made available to the player, and will not appear under any circumstances, even if its standard trigger conditions are met. For Validators specifically, this also means no validation is performed and no data is collected.

Use this to exclude content that is not relevant in a given workflow state. For example, you might Hide a Tooltip about a feature if the user has already completed the related Guide, or Hide a required-field Validator when the field itself is not present on the page.

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Multiple Actions in a single Contextual Action

You can add multiple Actions to a single Contextual Action. When the conditions are met, all Actions execute together.

The key constraint is around Guides: if one of your Actions is a Guide Start, that must be the only Action in the Contextual Action. Tooltips, Validators, Messages, Announcements, and Beacons can be freely combined with each other.

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Multiple Contextual Actions targeting the same content

A single piece of content can be targeted by multiple Contextual Actions. Each Contextual Action is evaluated independently, and if any of them has its conditions met, the content is triggered. This effectively creates OR logic between Contextual Actions targeting the same content.

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Example Action configurations

Here are some common Action setups to illustrate how content types and activation types work together: