If you’ve just signed up to build your guide or simply want to experiment with Guidebook Builder, this instructional guide will help you get started.
Interested in learning about the branding dashboard? Read our branding dashboard article for a walkthrough of app design and app store submission via Builder.
Welcome to Guidebook Builder
First, please visit builder.guidebook.com and log in to your Builder account. If you haven’t set one up yet, it’s free to sign up. In case you have any trouble with your password, click here to reset your password.
When you log in to your Builder account, you will arrive at the Builder home screen.
Your guides will appear on this home screen. The light grey bar at the top will be visible throughout Builder; click the home key in the middle to return home any time.
You can find announcements, see the history of your account, and manage your account and purchases using the buttons in the top-right corner.
At the top-left, you can find our Support center, which will direct you toward useful articles, and the Recents section, allowing you to quickly and easily change between your recently viewed guides.
Creating a Guide
To start building a guide, click the Create button at the left of the home screen.
Select a Template
The templates we provide are suggested outlines to help you get started. You will have access to all of the features in any template you choose.
Here are some helpful tips for narrowing down the choices:
- If your guide is for an Event, select Event Guide. Then select a template that most closely resembles your type of event. Event guides must have a start date and an end date in Builder.
- If you are creating a self-guided Tour of your campus, select Tour Guide. Then continue with a Campus Visit and Tours template.
- If your guide is for anything else (not just one event or a campus tour), including a year-round resource like a handbook, training, or your restaurant, you can choose any other category.
You can access the full suite of features regardless of the template you choose. If you can't decide which template to use, click Continue without a template to start from scratch. Again, you will have access to all of the features in any template you choose.
The Basics
The next few screens will lay the foundation for your guide. You can skip any step by clicking Skip for now. You can make changes to the basic details later as well.
Step 1 - Basic Details
Name: Select a name for your guide.
Description: This is a great place for a welcome letter, some instructions, and/or key contact information.
Short Name: Choose the ending for your guide's customized Guidebook Web URL. You'll use this when you promote your guide to your users.
Duration: If your guide is a long-term resource, you can make the duration ongoing. If your guide is for an event, please set the specific start and end dates here.
Time zone: Set the time zone for your primary or central location. You can lock the time zone to have Schedule sessions will appear on users' devices according to the guide’s time zone, or unlock to have them appear on user’s devices according to their local time zone.
Expected Attendance: Enter the number of attendees you expect to attend the event. This is used to tailor reports about your guide's success.
Actual Attendance: Once your event is complete, enter the number of attendees who actually attended the event. By providing this data, your metrics will be more accurate.
Step 2 - Branding
Guide Icon and Cover Image: On the next screen, add your guide icon and cover image.
Step 3 - Location
Venue Name: Provide the name of the guide's primary or central location.
Address: Use the Address bar to search for and set the street address.
Step 4 - Privacy
Privacy: On the next screen, you can determine the privacy setting for your guide.
Sharing: The Sharing option allows attendees to share the guide via Twitter, Facebook, messaging, and email.
Building a Guide
Once you have created a guide, you will arrive at the guide-building editor. Here you can draft your content and design a great tool for your users.
Your navigation menu is on the left side of the screen. This is what your users will see in the menu in the app.
The middle of the screen shows a preview of your guide. In the example above, the General Info module is the home screen, so the editor shows a preview of that menu item.
To the right, you will see a progress bar. Builder will alert you to any menu items missing content. When you’re ready to publish, the Submit guide button will no longer be grayed out and will be clickable.
To add any feature to your guide click Add feature to your guide at the top of the navigation menu on the left. You can find out more about adding specific features via the links below.
- Schedule
- Custom Lists (for example, Speakers or Sponsors)
- Maps (Overview)
- Attendee Engagement
- Organizing Your Guide
Click Back to Dashboard to access your guide dashboard. Here you can dive back into guide-building, or view the Activity History to see what changes were made and when. You can also create forms, schedule notifications, add collaborators to help build your guide, explore promotional materials, and even review the metrics when your guide is in use.
When editing your guide, you will see the quick search option on the menu at the top right. Click on the magnifying glass or click on the Search this Guide bar. Start typing your search term and click on the result when it appears. You can search for specific custom list items, features, schedules, sessions, and even areas of your guide (Metrics, Forms, and much more).
Viewing a Guide
After you’ve added content to your guide, you can generate a preview of your guide to see what it looks like in-app.
We recommend reviewing the promotional materials on the guide dashboard to strategize how you’re going to share your guide with your users.
When you are ready to share your guide, click Submit guide. Your guide will need to be reviewed before it’s approved and accessible.
FAQs
Will users require Internet access to access my guide?
On iOS and Android devices, downloading a guide requires Internet access. After downloading a guide, most of the guide information will be stored directly on the iOS or Android device. This means schedules, custom lists, and maps will be available offline.
There are, however, certain features that rely on network connectivity including:
- Guide Updates - when connected to the Internet, your guide will automatically check for updated content regularly.
- Session Attendance tracking / Registration
- Notifications
- Interact
- Attendee Check-in/Connect and Chat
- Photo Album
- Live Polls
- Forms
- Scavenger Hunt
- External links (website URLs, PDFs)
- Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube)
- RSS Feed
- Ticketing
- Web Views
- Leaderboard
How secure is my information?
Guidebook takes a proactive and holistic approach to security. Our Developers write security-related tests and administrators make sure we have properly configured security controls. We also contract security vulnerability assessments and penetration tests to highly respected third-party security engineers in order to validate our products.
We use Amazon servers, and Amazon takes a world-class approach to secure their servers. For details regarding Amazon's security please read the following: https://aws.amazon.com/security/.
User email addresses and passwords are only used for authentication. Passwords are hashed using bcrypt.
You can find out more on Guidebook's Security Page and via our Security FAQ.