Question 1

Can I open the web based version of an FAQ from a widget, overlay or inline embed?

Accepted Answer

You can turn on a link to the web based (hosted hub) version of each FAQ from within the widget, overlay or inline embed view of that FAQ via your embed theme.

Goto Brand --> Embeds --> The edit icon on the Emend Theme --> Scroll to the bottom of that screen.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/NcUhlNGNYG/Screenshot%202021-03-22%20at%2009.13.29.png (How to turn on the link to web based FAQ feature in MyMalcolm)

Watch the video below for more information!

Question 2

I'd like to open the Overlay embed directly, how do I do this?

Accepted Answer

When you create an Overlay embed we give you two bits of code to add to your page. The first is the master code which you should place just before the closing tag. The second is the inline code which generates the button users click to open the overlay - this goes inside the tags where you want the button to appear. When the user clicks the button the Overlay embed will appear in a modal (pop-up) over your page.

The inline code we give you will look like this -

Sometimes you might want to call the overlay but not use our button. You might want to call it from text or use your own button/graphic or you might want to call it in the background when a user does something else on your page.

You can do this by calling mapi in JavaScript.

The mapi has four methods - open, close, trigger and toggle. Open, close and toggle all return promises (i.e., a function that resolves when the animation is complete or a rejects if something went wrong, e.g., no embed found for the param passed). Trigger is more "fire and forget" - it will call the open function if everything goes well, otherwise it silently fails.

Here is an example using an href link that uses the trigger method to open the Overlay -

Note that you must have our master embed code on your page for the above to work and you need to replace EMBED_ID with your embed ID.

The above may also be useful for customers who are using third party site building systems - sometimes putting inline code into a page on those systems can be restricted so you can't add our inline code to render your button. If you can create inline links you could try using the above example with the trigger method to open the Overlay (again remember you also need the master code on the page).

Question 3

Why is my embed not showing?

Accepted Answer

If you've set up an embed but can't see it check these things:

Have you implemented the tags correctly? Double check the tag install instructions
Is the embed published? If it’s not published it won’t show
If you are using them check your URL rules - the rule type could be too strict (e.g. URL is exactly xxx rather than URL starts with xxx) - if you are testing on a dev or test URL you can add this within the URL rule section
Check the scheduling - if there’s a schedule to only show the embed on certain days and/or between certain times that may be having an effect
If you are testing on mobile check you've not disallowed the emded showing on mobile

If you are still having problems please open a support ticket and we'll help!

Question 4

How do I use your Wordpress plugin?

Accepted Answer

First download the Malcolm! Wordpress Plugin here.

In MyMalcolm! create your embeds as normal - instructions here.

At the end of the Embed creation process when your embed code is generated there is some text which says "Embedding in a Wordpress site?" - if you click that text you will be shown your instance ID and for some embed types you will be shown a shortcode. There is also an option to have this information emailed to you.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/Lglywov3F9/Screenshot%202020-05-24%2022.00.27.png (Embedding in a Wordpress site?)

In Wordpress, install the Malcolm! plugin then goto Settings --> Malcolm! and add your instance ID. Currently on some versions of Wordpress when you add the instance ID and press Save there is no acknowledgement of this but you can verify the instance ID has indeed been saved by navigating away and then back to Settings --> Malcolm!

You can see your instance ID in your URL when you are in MyMalcolm eg, https://my.malcolm.app/instances/XXXXXXXXXX/dashboard. The instance ID is the 10 digit code code shown where the X's are above.

For Widget and Full page embeds this is all you have to do - you can then configure on which pages your embeds appear via MyMalcolm (via the URL rules section of the respective embed).

For inline embeds and overlays you need to position where you would like the embed or the overlay launcher in your content. You do this using the Shortcode. Go to the page or post in Wordpress, make sure you are in code editor (not visual editor) and put the Shortcode where you wish the embed to appear / or the overlay be launched from.

If you have any issues with you embeds not appearing first check these things.

Question 5

How do I embed content from Malcolm! into my own website or app?

Accepted Answer

You can easily embed content from Malcolm! into your existing website, app, product or online service with just a few lines of code.

Begin by going to the Share section of MyMalcolm and then select Embed.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/N17DhjfW2Z/Screenshot%202021-12-30%20at%2013.57.57.png (Choose your embed type in MyMalcolm)

We offer the following type of embeds:

Floating Widget (with button and draw options) - this option floats a button or drawer “pre-expand” over your site, application, product or service - when clicked a content panel opens up
Overlay / Pop Up - this opens an overlay / popup over whatever the user is currently seeing - it’s triggered by a link you can place wherever you want in your site, application, product or service
Inline - pull content directly into the same pages/screens your users are seeing with this option - use blend mode for a truly seamless experience!

We also offer a fourth option which can be useful in some circumstances:

Redirect - this option creates an automatic redirect which will replace the page the embed is fired from with a Malcolm! hosted page. This is achieved by auto forwarding the user. This option can be useful in certain scenarios, for example if you constrained by only being able to publish via a CMS and want some navigation or pages within your CMS structure to link out to Malcolm! hosted content. Note you will likely want to use URL rules in conjunction with the redirect embed (otherwise the redirect will happen on all pages the embed is present on!).

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/jbX8ylorUd/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2019.11.05-13_16_07.png (Choose your embed content in MyMalcolm)

In terms of the type of content you can embed options include:

Hosted Hub results - paginated results showing the default filtered FAQs and Workflows as seen on your Hosted Hub homepage
A single FAQ - your choice of FAQ
A single Workflow - your choice of Workflow
Author listing - paginated results showing FAQs from a particular author
Category listing paginated results showing FAQs within a partiuclar category
Filtered results paginated results showing FAQs and Workflows filtered by your choice of filter (eg most popular, most recent, most helpful etc)
Search results (contextual) - paginated results showing FAQs and Workflows according to a search query provided via a meta tag on your page
Search results (specified search query) - paginated results showing FAQs and Workflows according to a given search query
Tag listing - paginated results showing FAQs referenced by particular tag

Note that if you just want to embed a single FAQ or Workflow you can also access a quick embed interface via the Library in both the FAQ and Workflow sections of MyMalcolm. Simply select "Embed" from the menu accessible on the right hand side of the respective published FAQ or Workflow.

You can configure various options around the visual stlye of your embed. The exact options available depend on the type of embed you have chosen.

When you have finished configuring the content and visual appearence of your embed, Malcolm! will give you the code that can be used to pull your content into your website, app, product or online service.

Watch a video guide to embeding Malcolm! content into your website below.

Question 6

What is the Share section in MyMalcolm for / how does it work?

Accepted Answer

The Share section of MyMalcolm gives you tools to embed and share content from Malcolm! into your existing websites, applications and social spaces.

You can bring content from Malcolm! directly into your current website via embeds. Choose the content you want to embed and how you want it displayed and we'll give you some code. Inserting that code into your current website will load in your content from Malcolm!

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/N17DhjfW2Z/Screenshot%202021-12-30%20at%2013.57.57.png ("Choose your embed type in MyMalcolm)

You can embed individual FAQs or Workflows, create custom widgets that can pull in things like search results, category listings, all content by a particular author, recent content, tagged content, most popular content and much more.

If you don't have a website or you want to group all your Malcolm! content together you can use our Hosted Hub.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/77KnCbIxOb/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2019.11.05-11_21_58.png (About our Hosted Hub)

We also have a plugin for Wordpress.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/3xBONmPNuf/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2019.11.05-11_06_58.png (The Share section of MyMalcolm)

In addition to the above customers on our Enterprise plans have full access to our API which means they can pull from and push content to Malcolm! in a variety of ways - please speak to your account manager for more details.

Question 7

How can I listen to JavaScript events posted from embeds?

Accepted Answer

Malcolm! embeds fire events on user interactions such as when someone first reads an FAQ, completes a Workflow or performs a search. These events can be picked up on your web page for you to perform custom actions - for example creating an event for your Analytics.

How can I listen to these events?

The first event, mapiload, is fired on the window when the mapi.js library has loaded.

The embeds are then rendered followed by the mapi.onrender event.

To register a listener use the mapi.on function.

We recommend combining the window.addEventListener and mapi.on functions for maximum compatibility especially if your application uses JavaScript page transitions, however if your application reloads the page on each request you could combine these into one.

Once the embeds have rendered use the embed.on function to register listeners.

If you know the ID of the embed (can be found in MyMalcolm) use mapi.findEmbed function.

Alternatively loop through the mapi.embeds array.

Putting it all together your code snippet could look something like this.

What events are available?

Question 8

How can I style my embeds?

Accepted Answer

You can now style your embeds via Embed Themes which are managed via the Brand section of MyMalcolm. Inside each Embed Theme you can customise elements like colours, icons and fonts.

Don't forget you also have further visual options on the "Style" tab of the individual embed in question.