Preview Modules in Your Workspace
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Preview content that you’re working on in your local workspace.
- Share a preview with collaborators.
Types of Previews in Trailmaker
Typically, your company drafts, reviews, and finalizes content using a collaboration tool outside of Trailmaker, such as Google Docs™. By the time content creators set up modules and units in Trailmaker Content, the content and formatting should already be finalized. Still, content creators and other stakeholders might want to inspect and validate the module’s user experience after it’s formatted in Trailmaker Content but before it’s published.
Trailmaker provides two types of capabilities for previewing content.
| Preview Type | What’s Available | Who Can Access It |
|---|---|---|
|
Content preview |
Preview a module that’s in the content creator’s local Trailmaker Content workspace. This preview is limited to only the current module and its units. Note: This preview isn’t available for a trail. |
Only a user with the Create Content permission can launch the preview and share the URL. Anyone who receives the URL can view the preview—no extra permissions required. |
|
Release preview |
Preview a full release that’s created for a particular content collection in Trailmaker Release. This preview shows all the content that’s currently published in the content collection where the release is created, plus new or changed content (including trails) being processed as part of the release. |
Only users with the Preview Release permission can access the full release preview. |
In this unit, you examine the local preview from Trailmaker Content. To learn more about the full release preview from Trailmaker Release, check out the Preview How a Release Affects Your Enablement Site unit in the Trailmaker Release Basics module.
Let’s check in with Cindy, the content creator at Pure Aloe who has just created two modules in her Trailmaker Content workspace. Cindy wants to preview her work and share the preview with a few subject matter experts (SMEs).
Launch the Content Preview
Here’s how Cindy launches the preview from the Edit Module page.
- In the Trailmaker Content workspace, select the title of the module.
- On the Edit Module page, click Preview.
The preview opens in a new tab, and includes a banner that indicates which content you're previewing.
Cindy can also launch the preview from the Edit Unit page.
- On the Edit Module page, select the title of a unit.
- On the Edit Unit page, click Preview.
Regardless of where she launches the preview, Cindy can navigate the entire module and all its units. The preview is read-only, but Cindy can follow links, verify formatting and media, and view the correct answers for each unit’s quiz. (Viewing the quiz answers doesn’t affect points and badges—users can only earn points and badges by completing quizzes in your live production environment). But Cindy can preview only one module at a time. To preview another module, Cindy closes the tab where the preview is open, and then selects a different module to preview.
Share the Preview
Cindy’s Trailmaker Content workspace is local only to her. Other collaborators can’t access the content that Cindy is working on. But Cindy can share a module’s preview with other users. This can be useful if other collaborators at Pure Aloe want to validate the content in the Trailhead format before it’s published.
Here’s how Cindy shares the module preview.
- Click Share Preview in the preview mode banner.
- In the Share Preview window, click Copy.
- Click Done.
- Paste the preview link in an email, Slack message, or other direct message to a colleague.
In the preview, reviewers have the same experience as the content author who shared the preview: They can navigate the module and its units, and see the quiz questions and correct answers. But reviewers can’t leave comments or suggest changes.
The person who you share the preview link with doesn’t require any specific Salesforce or enablement site permissions. When they follow your preview link, they don’t have to log in to view the content. Although your enablement site is private and requires users to authenticate, the preview link is public, and potentially accessible by anyone. Use caution when you share the preview link with others.
The content preview is read-only. You can view quizzes and see the correct answers, but you can’t complete the quiz like you can in the full release preview.
The preview link expires after 30 days of inactivity if:
- No one has visited the preview link for 30 days after it’s created.
- The content creator who shared the preview hasn’t modified the module or its units in Trailmaker Content for 30 days after the preview was created.
To disable sharing so that the preview is visible only to you, switch the toggle to off. You can always re-enable sharing later.
Cindy’s stakeholders review the module preview and send her feedback. Maybe an image isn’t aligned correctly, a link navigates to the wrong destination, or a quiz question indicates the wrong answer. Cindy can continue editing the module in her local workspace, and those edits propagate to the preview URL that she or her stakeholders are currently viewing. There’s no need for someone viewing the preview to close and relaunch the preview in order to see the changes that Cindy made. Pretty cool, huh?
With her modules created and previewed, Cindy is feeling confident about her content. Next, she creates a trail so that users can find and complete both of her modules sequentially.
