Understanding default widget behavior
RightMessage's default behavior is designed to save time for your contacts by skipping questions they've already answered. When someone loads a survey or quiz again, the widget automatically skips any questions that have been answered previously.
This happens because of the "Skip known questions" setting, which is enabled by default in your widget settings.
When skipping causes problems
While this behavior is helpful in many cases, it can create unintended side effects in certain flows:
Redirect loops: A flow that asks questions and then redirects to another page will skip all answered questions on reload, triggering an immediate redirect without showing any questions.
Testing issues: When previewing or testing flows, you'll see the widget skip to where you left off instead of starting fresh.
One-time quizzes: Flows designed to be taken multiple times will resume instead of restarting.
Even if someone hasn't answered a question in their current browser, they'll still skip questions if we've identified them as a contact who answered previously on a different device.
How cross-device skipping works
RightMessage identifies contacts across browsers and devices in two ways:
Same browser: Your browser stores progress locally, so reloading the page will resume where you left off.
Different devices: If we've identified someone's browser as a specific contact (typically through email capture), we'll skip questions they've answered on any device—even a different computer.
This means a contact who completes a quiz on their laptop and later visits your site on their phone will see questions skipped on the phone too.
Cross-device resuming requires an email platform integration and the contact's email to be captured. Without email identification, each browser starts fresh.
Disabling the skip behavior
To make your survey or quiz always start from the beginning, disable the "Skip known questions" setting:
Go to Widgets in your RightMessage dashboard.
Click Edit on the widget that triggers your flow.
Scroll to the Flow Behavior section.
Toggle Skip known questions to off (it should turn gray).
Click Save at the bottom of the page.
After saving, your flow will always start from the first question, regardless of previous answers.
This setting is configured per widget, not per flow. If you use multiple widgets for the same flow, you'll need to update each one individually.
Resetting progress for testing
If you're testing a flow and need to see it from the beginning without changing widget settings, you have a few options:
Use incognito mode: Open an incognito or private browsing window to test without any saved progress.
Clear browser storage: Open your browser's developer tools and clear localStorage entries starting with "rmpanda" to reset your progress.
Test on a different device: Use another computer or mobile device that hasn't loaded the flow before.
Preview mode in the Flow builder may still resume from your last session. For the cleanest testing experience, use incognito mode or clear your browser storage.