This article covers variants and segmentation, in addition to scheduling for pages, rows, and menus.
Topics covered here:
What are variants?
Variants allow you to create different versions of your page, row, and menu content and target each version to specific segments of your audience.
With a range of criteria available to be configured for your variants, dynamically serve every user with the most appropriate content.
Set up parameters for specific device types, user groups, languages, segmentation tags, and/or timeframe (date and time of day). The parameters applied determine the version of the page, row, or menu that's presented to your users — each variant is a completely independent version.
Page variants
With page variants, you can serve users with different versions of a page depending on your variant parameters. A common use case is to provide multiple language variants for the same page.
Languages must be specified in the ADMIN > Settings section of Presentation Manager. Once page variants are set up with a particular language and published, this populates the language switcher in the footer of the Reference Apps.
Below are some variant examples in both Presentation Manager and a Responsive Web app.
Language variant examples
Presentation Manager: Variant 1 "English" set to English US (en-US) for the Home page.
Responsive Web app: This is the Home page your users will see in the front end when using a device set to English (US).
Responsive Web app: Footer language switcher
Presentation Manager: Variant 2 "Chinese" set to Chinese (Simplified) for the Home page.
Responsive Web app: This is the Home page your users will see in the front end when using a device set to Chinese (Simplified).
How do page variants work?
When you have multiple page variants set up, the user's app reads the variants from right-to-left and displays the first "match" found for the user's device settings and profile.
In the example below, variant 5 is read first, then 4, 3, 2, and 1. If variant 5 matches the user's device and profile settings and all other set parameters, then the app will display that page variant to the user. If not, it will move on to read variant 4, and so on.
Renaming page variants
We recommend naming your variants something useful so you can quickly identify them. To change your variant's name, select the variant name, and the mouse will transform into a cursor. Type a new variant name and hit enter on the keyboard, or select away from the variant tab to save changes.
AXIS 9.4 introduced the ability to add color-coding to page variant tabs, giving you more ways to quickly distinguish between variants.
Duplicating page variants
To create a new variant with minor changes, there's no need to re-enter information. You can easily duplicate an existing variant by selecting the arrow button on the right of the variant tab, followed by Duplicate. You've now cloned the original variant and can proceed to make any necessary changes.
Note: Creating an exact duplicate page variant – e.g., if variant 5 and variant 4 are identical – will result in the system reading variant 5 and skipping variant 4.
Deleting a page variant
You can delete a page variant if you have more than one set up. Select the arrow button on the one you want to delete, followed by Delete. If you only have one page variant, you won't be able to delete it.
Warning: The delete action cannot be undone.
Re-ordering page variants
Easily drag and drop your variants to re-order them.
Learn more about creating and editing page variants.
Row variants
Much like pages, you can create variants of individual rows. Tailor different versions of the same row for specific use cases, e.g., to target specific device types, users, segmentation tags, and/or timeframes.
Note: Language preferences can't be set at row level; however, all other parameters are available.
To create a new row variant, select the plus icon next to the existing row details block.
Alternatively, if you only need to change a small detail, select the arrow on the details block of the existing row variant to duplicate it. This creates a cloned row variant where you can make alterations quickly and easily, without needing to re-enter information.
Row variants are read from right to left. As with page variants, once you've created your row variants you can drag and drop them to reorder.
Find out more about editing row variants.
Ordering page variants
Super Admin users can choose between Right-to-Left and Left-to-Right ordering of page and row variants to cater to specific language needs. This is by selecting Configuration > Global > Page/Row order:
How row variants work in the apps
To understand how variants work within Presentation Manager alongside Reference Apps, select an example below:
The PB4 - Branded Image (2:3) row has two variants. First, display the list Collection Fast and The Furious on browsers, whereas the second displays the Collection - James Bond on TVs.
Below is the PB4 Branded Image row using a browser (Responsive Web) application, alongside the same row on a TV application.
The ED1 - Editorial Image row has two variants. The first displays a promotional image to basic and standard users who have logged in. In contrast, the second presents a promotional image to visitors (non-members) who do not have an account.
Below is the ED1 - Editorial Image row when using a browser (Responsive Web) application.
The P1 - Standard (2:3) row has two variants. The first displays a list of Kids Movies to users with the segmentation tag Kids and a list of All Movies to those with the segmentation tag 25-34, depending on the age range of the user.
Below is the P1 - Standard (2:3) row when using a browser (Responsive Web) application.
Variant scheduling
Scheduling – specifying a timeframe for your page or row variant – allows you to configure the release of content for a specific date and time.
With scheduling set, variants are still read from right to left, but only when the scheduled date and time arrive does the associated content become available to be viewed by the relevant end-users. Read our separate article to learn more about variant scheduling.
Menu variants
How do menu variants work?
Menu variants can be set when creating the header, account, and footer menus. Your users see a version of the menu based on the criteria applied to each variant. An everyday use case for menu variants might be targeting different menu options at specific user age groups. Menu variants are configured in a similar way to page variants.
The example below shows the Presentation Manager setup of variant 1 with the segmentation tag 25-34 and variant 2 with the segmentation tag Kids.
Configure menu variants in the same way for header, footer, and account navigation options.
Menu metadata
| When specifying menu metadata, the only variant options available are for language. |
Our separate article tells you more about editing menu variants.