Understanding Flexcard Session Variables: Your Guide to Personalized Interactions
Flexcards, those dynamic interactive elements within Salesforce, offer a powerful way to engage users and provide personalized experiences. But what if you want to take that personalization a step further? This is where flexcard session variables come in.
Session variables, as the name suggests, are data that is specific to a user's current interaction with a Flexcard. This means they can be used to track user choices, preferences, or even information that you need to carry between different parts of a Flexcard flow.
But how do these session variables work, and how can you leverage them to create truly dynamic experiences?
The Power of Session Variables
Imagine you have a Flexcard that presents users with a series of product options. As a user navigates through these options, you want to keep track of their selections to eventually recommend personalized products. That's where flexcard session variables shine! You can use them to store the user's choices as they interact with the Flexcard.
Key Concepts
1. Declaration:
You need to declare your session variable in the flexcard.json file. Here's a basic example:
{
"sessionVariables": {
"selectedProduct": null,
"userPreference": "default"
}
}
This code declares two session variables: selectedProduct (which will store the user's product choice) and userPreference (which might store their preferences for product type).
2. Initialization: You can initialize session variables with default values at declaration.
3. Accessing Session Variables:
You can access and modify session variables using the session object in the Flexcard's JavaScript code. For example, to update the selectedProduct variable, you would use:
session.set('selectedProduct', 'My Product');
4. Usage: Flexcards offer several ways to utilize session variables:
- Conditional Display: Show or hide specific content based on the values stored in session variables. This allows you to tailor the Flexcard content for each user.
- Dynamic Content: Populate fields with data from session variables. This lets you display personalized information based on the user's interactions.
- Passing Data: Carry information across different stages of a Flexcard or even to other components. This is useful for building complex, multi-step flows.
Examples
1. Personalization: A Flexcard displaying product recommendations could use session variables to store the user's chosen category or price range. This data could be used to dynamically update the product recommendations based on their preferences.
2. Multi-Step Flow: A Flexcard guiding users through a signup process could use session variables to store the user's input for each step. This data could then be used to automatically populate the next step's fields.
3. Data Tracking: You could track user interactions within a Flexcard. For example, you might track which products they have viewed or which buttons they have clicked. This data could be helpful for analytics and improving the Flexcard experience.
Tips for Effective Usage
- Clear Naming: Choose meaningful names for your session variables to improve code readability.
- Avoid Over-Complication: Use session variables sparingly and only for essential data.
- Proper Validation: Validate user input before storing it in session variables to prevent errors.
- Security: Be mindful of security implications when storing sensitive data in session variables.
Conclusion
Flexcard session variables are a powerful tool for adding dynamic behavior and personalization to your Flexcards. By understanding how to declare, access, and manipulate these variables, you can unlock a wide range of possibilities for creating engaging and personalized experiences within Salesforce.
This guide is just the starting point. Explore the documentation and experiment with session variables in your own Flexcard projects to fully grasp their capabilities and create truly unique user interactions.