Why isn't my GivingFlow trigger working?
So - you've generated your GivingFlow trigger in your GivingFlow Settings, but for some reason, the trigger link isn't forcing the GivingFlow open for you.
Now what? 🤔
There are a couple of potential reasons why your GivingFlow trigger isn't working:
- Anchor points
- Certain Wix websites
- Campus-specific homepages
Feel free to scroll down to the section that pertains to you. But first, a bit of valuable information on the GivingFlow trigger 👨🏫
The Root Domain
Whenever you generate a GivingFlow trigger, you must always select a website URL.
The website URLs available in the dropdown menu correlate exactly to the website URLs in your GivingFlow Installation Settings.
The # Symbol
To generate your GivingFlow trigger link, RebelGive uses the # symbol to create a URL fragment (everything that follows the # symbol). At its most basic level, your GivingFlow trigger URL fragment will look like #givingflow after your website URL.
For example, if https://lifeabundant.ca/ is the website URL, then the most basic GivingFlow trigger link will be https://lifeabundant.ca/#givingflow.
When you add additional parameters to your GivingFlow trigger (e.g. adding a suggested amount, suggested fund, suggested donation frequency), your GivingFlow trigger link will become more complex.
Regardless of how simple or complex your GivingFlow trigger is, though, it always begins with the # symbol.
For most websites, this isn't an issue, and your GivingFlow trigger will force the GivingFlow to open as it's meant to; however, there are a couple nuanced instances where this won't occur.
Webpages Using Anchor Points ⚓️
URL fragments (everything that follows the # symbol) are commonly used for on-page navigation. For webpages using anchor points, the default browser behavior is to use the URL fragment to scroll the window to an identically named on-page anchor link. (It is also often used by single page applications - SPA - for routing.)
For instance, if you add #givingflow after your website URL and you see "givingflow" disappear in the address bar, replaced by a different word (or set of characters) after the # symbol (e.g. #welcome), you'll know your homepage uses anchor points.
Because GivingFlow triggers also use the # symbol to force open the GivingFlow - a fragment that your website doesn't recognize (as it might with something like #welcome or #service-times) - the SPA hash router is capturing the URL fragment and deleting the unrecognized #givingflow before the GivingFlow can read it.
Generating URL fragments using the # symbol for GivingFlow triggers is the most accessible and easy to use method. So while there isn't an alternative way to generate your GivingFlow triggers currently, there is a solution!
And Secondly, Anchor links alone are not a conflict with the Giving Trigger links. You could totally use a anchor links on your webpage for navigation and the Giving Trigger links should work without issue.
The conflict arises when a website is designed as a single page application AND is using hash-based routing (hash being another name for #). Its these Javascript hash routers that cause the conflict with the Giving Triggers. That one particular Wix site (and probably other Wix sites) is an example of that. The hash router is loaded before the GivingFlow and it looks at the URL and decides what route (or page) to load. If it doesn't find a match it then redirects to a known route, thus stripping the anchor link from the URL.
I'm not sure Wix is going to be able to do anything for us. They are not going to alter the behavior of their SPA router. A hash-based router is great if you are a web developer and have complete control over your website. But its kind of a bad idea for a Content Management System, where your users (Wix customers) don't have complete control over their site and can't resolve issues like this.
Bottom line: we can't support Giving Trigger links on Wix sites. Clicking a trigger link on the page should work (because it bypasses the router). But navigation directly to a Giving trigger link will not.
Potential Solution
Most church websites that use anchor points don't use anchor points on all their webpages, and usually never on their giving page. This means that using the URL fragment (the # symbol and anything that follows for your GivingFlow trigger) on any webpage without anchor points should, in theory, work.
For example, if your giving page on your website is https://lifeabundant.ca/give (where the permalink is /give) and it doesn't contain any anchor points, you could simply add /#givingflow after that URL to make it https://lifeabundant.ca/give/#givingflow
If this works for you, this simply means all you need to remember is, whenever you generate any GivingFlow trigger, you'll need to manually add that extra permalink between your root domain (lifeabundant.ca/) and the URL fragment (/#givingflow). In this example, you would simply need to remember to always ensure the permalink /give is added between the two.
Certain Wix Websites 💻
If your church uses a Wix website, depending on the template you're using, it's possible that Wix is stripping out the URL fragment (everything after the #) of the GivingFlow trigger link. This causes a race condition. Which will load first: The GivingFlow code, or Wix? If Wix loads first, it will strip out the URL fragment, and the GivingFlow will never see it, and therefore never open up on the screen.
Potential Solution
There currently isn't a solution to prevent Wix from stripping the URL fragment out of the GivingFlow trigger link. As this is a very specific case scenario, with only certain Wix website templates, our best recommendation would be to reach out to Wix support and ask them if there is a way for your template to not strip out the URL fragment.
Campus-Specific Homepages 💒
If you have multiple campuses for your church, it's quite possible you have one main landing page (with a single root domain), with an individual website for each campus associated with that domain.
For example, say your church has two campuses: one located on the north end of town, one on the south end. If your root domain is https://lifeabundant.ca, you might have your north campus' website found at https://lifeabundant.ca/north (where the permalink is /north) while your south campus' website is found at https://lifeabundant.ca/south (where the permalink is /south).
In this instance, you may not want your GivingFlow trigger to appear on your landing page (with your root domain), so you add https://lifeabundant.ca/north and https://lifeabundant.ca/south as your website URLs in your GivingFlow Installation Settings.
But when you go to generate your GivingFlow trigger, you'll notice when you choose your website URL, it only shows your root domain.
Potential Solution
All this means is that, no matter what GivingFlow trigger RebelGive generates for you, you simply need to add the appropriate permalink in between your root domain and your URL fragment.
For instance, if your GivingFlow trigger is https://lifeabundant.ca/#givingflow and you want to generate a GivingFlow trigger for your north campus, simply add /north in between https://lifeabundant.ca and /#givingflow.
Other Scenarios ✨
Still experiencing difficulties with your GivingFlow trigger not forcing open your GivingFlow? Let us know! Perhaps there is an issue we've never encountered and you're the first pioneer. We'd love to help you. Simple click on the chat bubble in the bottom left corner of your screen and let us know what's going on 💬