Introducing Widget Templates: One Account, Multiple Widgets for Every Website

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We’re thrilled to announce a highly anticipated feature in OpenWidget: Widget Templates! With this latest update, you can now create multiple chat widget templates, customize each one independently, and assign them to specific websites using flexible routing rules. Whether you’re managing multiple sites or customizing experiences for different audiences, Widget Templates make it easier than ever to personalize the widget based on the content of your website or the type of experience that you want to provide.

What Are Widget Templates?

Widget Templates allow you to create and configure unique widgets for different websites or pages, all from your OpenWidget Management Application. You can customize the widget’s appearance, adjust its features, and even assign separate integrations—like OpenAI Assistants—to each template.

For example, if you have two different websites and the support for each of those websites is handled by OpenAI Assistant, you can now create two separate widgets, route customers to those widgets based on the URL address, and assign different OpenAI Assistants to them. 

With the new Routing Rules feature, you can decide which template will be displayed based on the specific URL or some specific part of your URL, like openwidget.com/widgets/google-reviews.

When are the Widget Templates most useful? 

Here are some examples that will give you a better idea of how Widget Templates can help you and your customers:

1. Multilingual Websites: Create separate templates for the different languages you support and make sure that visitors see a widget in their preferred language.
2. Multiple Brands: If you manage multiple brands, you can now design a unique template for each brand to maintain the consistent experience and messaging that your brands convey.
3. Multiple Widget Purposes: Create widgets for different purposes—for instance, a support-focused template for help pages and a sales-oriented template for product pages.

How to Create a New Widget Template

Creating a template is quick and easy. Here’s how you can get started:

1. Navigate to the Advanced Settings in the OpenWidget Management App.
2. Go to the Templates section.
3. Click the New Template button.

That’s it! Your new template is now ready. Click Manage Template’s Content on the template’s screen to start customizing.

You can adjust the widget’s look and feel, enable or disable specific features, and integrate it with tools like OpenAI or Google Reviews.

Assigning (Routing) Templates to Specific Websites

In addition to the Templates section, Advanced Settings can also take you to the Rules section. Rules let you control which template that you created is displayed on which website. Here’s how it works:

1. Go to the Advanced Settings and select the Rules section.
2. Click Add New Rule.
3. In the Add New Rule view, choose the type of matching pattern that OpenWidget should use (is exactly or contains) and provide the exact URL address or a specific part of the URL address we should use when matching the template.
4. Choose which template should be displayed when visitors match the rule and Save changes.

Note that when creating a new rule, you can add multiple conditions to it to refine your routing. 

For example, you can create a Sales template and then create a rule that will route customers to it when they visit any URL that contains the sales OR support phrase in the URL, like example.com/sales OR example.com/support.

Rules priority

In addition to creating the Rules themselves, you can also adjust their priority. One might ask: why should I do that?

Understanding Rule's priority

In the widget's routing system, rules are evaluated in a specific order to determine which template applies to a customer. When you create multiple rules, their priority determines which rule takes effect first if multiple rules could potentially match the same customer action. Let’s break it down with an example:

You set up two routing rules:

1. Rule 1: If the customer visits any page that contains example.com, route them to the Main template.
2. Rule 2: If the customer visits a page that contains example.com/sales, route them to the Sales template.

Now, a customer visits example.com/sales. Without prioritization, the system might apply Rule 1 (the general rule) and route them to the Main template, even though Rule 2 is more specific. By assigning higher priority to Rule 2, you ensure the more specific rule is evaluated first, sending the customer to the correct Sales template.

To give you one more example, let's consider when the rule priority matters:

Overlapping Conditions

If one rule covers a broad range of conditions (like all pages on your site), and another is more specific (like a single URL), priority ensures the specific rule takes precedence.

Default or Catch-All Rules

General rules often act as a fallback, applied when no specific conditions match. These should have a lower priority so that more specific rules are considered first.

So, how to change the Rules priority?

Changing Rule's priority

Changing the priority itself is simple! While on the Rules section, all you need to do is to:

1. Hover your mouse over the six dots situated at the top left corner of the rule that you'd like to adjust.
2. Drag and drop the rule to the desired position (the higher the rule is the higher its priority).
3. Save changes to the Rule priority.

And that's it! From now on, your rules will reflect a new priority for your customers.

Oh, and remember that in the Rules section, you can also decide which template will be displayed if the customer visits the page that does not match any created rule. You can think of it as a fallback scenario, in case that while creating your rules you have not included a specific URL on which the OpenWidget is used. To do that, change the template displayed under the If a customer doesn't match any rule above, display: phrase and Save changes:

What’s Next?

We’re just getting started! Stay tuned for more updates and features as we continue to work on tools that allow you to improve the browsing experience for your visitors.

Ready to explore Widget Templates? Head over to the OpenWidget Management App and start creating widgets adjusted to your specific use-cases and your visitors today!