Preview a flow in the builder
You'll click through your flow in a floating preview, pick which way it goes where it can't tell, and see what it would have sent, without publishing anything.
Click through your flow as a visitor would, right beside the canvas, while you keep editing. The preview runs your unpublished draft, asks you which way to go wherever it can't tell on its own, and lights up the path it took. Nothing it does reaches your email platform, your webhooks, or your reports.
It's the quickest way to check every branch of a flow. Once the flow looks right here, try it on your real website with Preview on your site, which also checks page rules and display triggers.
Open the preview
- Open your flow from Flows.
- Choose the eye button labeled Preview flow in the canvas toolbar on the right. Choose it again to close the preview.
The preview opens as a floating window in the top-right corner of the canvas and starts as a brand-new visitor. System flows don't have a preview.
The window stays out of your way while you work:
- Move it by dragging its header, or focus the dotted grip and use the arrow keys.
- Resize it from the bottom-right corner, or focus that corner and use the arrow keys. Hold Shift for bigger steps. It can't get smaller than 320 × 360 pixels.
- Minimize it with the minus button, and choose the same button again to expand it. Close it with ×.
Your browser remembers where you put the window and how big you made it, and the tab remembers whether it's minimized. The window always stays inside the visible canvas, so it moves along when you open Righty or make your browser smaller. Scrolling inside the window never moves or zooms the canvas.
The dashboard's setup checklist has the same preview. Its Try it in preview step opens it in a dialog when you choose Preview. That version asks at conditions too, but the canvas highlighting described below is only in the builder.
Check the device and the widget
The device fills the window. Use the toolbar buttons to switch between Desktop, a 1024-pixel-wide screen, and Phone, a 375-pixel-wide screen. The caption above the device names the one you're seeing. In the builder, the preview starts on Phone unless you've made the window at least 560 pixels wide. The sun and moon buttons show the widget in its light or dark colors.
If two or more widgets use the flow, pick the widget to preview from the menu beside these buttons. Switching widgets starts again as a new visitor.
Answer questions and click buttons in the device just as a visitor would.
Choose which way to go when the preview asks
The preview knows only what happens inside it. When it reaches a condition, a segment router, or a random split that depends on something else, it stops and asks. A card over the device shows Which way should this visitor go? with the condition and a button for each branch.
The preview waits at a condition about page views. The question and webhook it already went through are outlined, and the condition's Yes and No labels on the canvas are buttons too.
Choose a branch on the card, or click the branch label on the canvas. The flow carries on from there without starting over. The Default tag marks the branch the preview would take on its own, and the line under the buttons says so.
The preview works these out by itself and doesn't ask:
- Answers given in this preview, including segments set by a Set Data step.
- Scores set in this preview, and conditions on which widget is showing or which questions were answered.
- Segments whose rules use only those things.
- Tags, lists, fields, and other email platform data, while you preview as one of your contacts.
It asks about everything else, such as page views and page URLs, the referrer, query and UTM parameters, the device, browser, and location, and segments that come from page rules. It also asks about a segment that wasn't answered in this preview and has no rules, since a real visitor might have answered it on an earlier visit.
Review or change your choices
The preview remembers each choice, so Restart and Next page view take the same path without asking again. Choose Choices in the toolbar to see them. The number on the button counts them.
In the Choices popover, you can:
- Switch a choice to another branch with its Yes / No buttons, or with its menu for routers and longer branch names.
- Remove one choice with ×, so the preview asks again next time.
- Remove them all with Clear all.
Changing or removing a choice restarts the preview as a new visitor. A condition that's waiting right now is listed with a Waiting tag.
Choices are kept for this browser tab, separately for each flow and each A/B test version of it. When you delete a step or change what it checks (its condition, the router's segment group or branches, or the number of random groups), the preview forgets that step's choice and asks again.
Start over or move to the next page
The footer shows which page view you're on and has two buttons:
- Restart starts again as a brand-new visitor with nothing stored. Your remembered choices still apply, and the count goes back to Page view 1.
- Next page view continues as the same visitor on a new page, keeping everything the preview stored, such as their answers. Use it to check a progressive profiling flow page by page. The count goes up by one.
When a flow ends, a card over the device says how and why: it reached an Exit step, it would redirect the visitor (the preview never leaves the page), or it ran out of steps to show. The card has its own Next page view and Restart buttons.
Preview as one of your contacts
To see the flow the way a known contact would, run the preview as someone from your connected email platform.
- Choose the Anonymous visitor button at the left of the toolbar.
- Choose A contact from your email platform.
- Enter the contact's email address and choose Look up.
The preview restarts as that contact. Conditions on their tags, lists, and fields are worked out instead of asked, and questions they've already answered through synced fields are skipped. Contact details lists their tags and fields, which is what conditions will read. Type in Filter tags and fields to find one.
The lookup only reads from your email platform. Nothing is written back to the contact. The contact stays selected for every flow in this project until you close the tab. Choose Change to look up someone else, or Use anonymous to go back to a new, unknown visitor.
You'll need a connected email platform and permission to edit the project. If a lookup doesn't work, the popover says why: there's no contact with that email, no email platform is connected, the address isn't valid, or the platform couldn't be reached. You can look up 20 contacts a minute. Previewing as a contact isn't available in the demo project.
See what the preview didn't send
The preview never writes to your email platform, calls webhooks, or sends email notifications. When the flow reaches a step that would, a Not sent button appears in the footer with a count. Choose it to see what a real visit would have done.
The list can include field updates, tags applied or removed, list changes, identifying the visitor (which creates the contact if it's new), webhook calls, email notifications, and actions in your email platform or its site script. Email notifications usually show only their subject, without recipients. A repeated update is listed once, and the list starts fresh on every Restart and Next page view.
Preview visits aren't counted in your reports or your live visitor activity either.
Follow the path on the canvas
While the window is open, the canvas shows where the preview has been:
- Steps the preview went through are outlined.
- The current step has a stronger outline, and a condition that's waiting for you pulses.
- Below a condition, router, or split, the branch it took is filled in and the others are dimmed.
- When the flow runs out of steps, the Exit flow card at the end is highlighted.
The canvas follows the current step and keeps it clear of the preview window and the Build panel. Once you pan or zoom, it stops following until the next Restart or Next page view. The highlights go away when you close the preview.
What the preview can't show you
The preview runs your flow on a blank page, not on your website. It can't check page rules, display triggers, how the widget fits your pages, or anything your site's own scripts and styles do. Use Preview on your site for those, then publish when you're happy.
The preview loads your latest draft. If the draft can't be loaded, a note says the preview is showing your published flow instead. For an A/B test version, the preview stays blank and asks you to restart.
The preview also runs in an isolated frame. Code steps run as usual, but they can't reach your RightMessage sign-in, call the dashboard, or use the page's cookies. That's also why there's no button to open the preview full size in a new tab: a new tab couldn't keep that isolation or your choices.