Will editors still get a working preview once slots are personalized?
Our editors lean heavily on previewing a page before it goes out. My worry with adding personalized slots is that "the page" is no longer a single thing, so what exactly does an editor preview when a slot has several variants?
Concretely: can they see a specific variant as a real visitor in that audience would see it, and what has to be in place for that preview to work? I want to reassure the content team before we commit.
1 answer
Yes, editors keep a working preview, and they preview a specific variant rather than an averaged page. You generate a preview link from the experience or experiment editor; it is valid for 24 hours, and it is shareable and regenerable, so the content team can pass it around or refresh it as needed. Opening it renders the page as a visitor in that audience and variant would actually see it.
While previewing, a widget in the bottom-right shows the active experience, experiment, audience, variant, and locale, so an editor can confirm they are looking at the right combination. The preview mode documentation covers generating and sharing these links.
Three requirements for it to work: the slots have to be integrated, the slot versions have to match between the preview and what is deployed, and the domain has to be listed in your trusted origins (see trusted origins). And if an experience is paused, the preview shows the default slot content, which is your existing Contentful fallback, so there is always something sensible to look at.