Announce changelog updates in the widget

Show announced changelog entries to your visitors as a What's new message in the Self-Service Widget. Turn the feature on in your widget setup once, then choose to announce each entry when you publish it.

Prerequisites

Before you can announce changelog updates in the widget, you need both of the following:

• A changelog in your help center. The widget shows announced entries from your changelog, so create one first. See Create a changelog.

• Announcements enabled in your widget setup. Set the changelogAnnouncements option when you initialize the widget. Add it to your embed code:

  Ferndesk('init', {
    widgetId: 'YOUR_WIDGET_ID',
    changelogAnnouncements: true
  })

  See the Ferndesk SDK Reference for the full options.

Announce an entry when you publish it

Announcing is a choice you make per entry, at publish time or right after. A quietly published entry still appears in the changelog feed, so announcing is only about the What's new message.

1. Open the changelog entry in the editor.

2. Click Publish changelog entry.

3. When asked Announce in the widget?, choose Yes, announce it to show the entry as a What's new message, or No, publish quietly to only add it to the changelog feed.

You can also change the choice after publishing: open the entry's settings and toggle Announce in the widget in the Announcement section, with the helper text "Shows a What's new prompt to signed-in widget users who haven't seen it yet." The announce question and the switch appear only for published default-language entries, not for drafts or translations. Publishing a regular changelog entry without announcing it is covered in Publish a changelog entry.

FAQ