Configuring Widget Behavior

Widget behavior includes various concepts that impact the user experience for a widget. This can include simple behavior such as showing or hiding certain parts of a widget to more complex behavior such as whether customers have the option to select the bill considered for their bill comparison.

You can configure widget behavior from the Functionality options for a widget. Each widget can include zero or more tabs of functionality options, which are general categorizations of the functionality options. While these categories are specific to each widget, they often include:

Visual or general preference settings enable you to configure the display properties of the objects on the widget, such as colors, fonts, and tooltips, and so on.
Rules settings provide functionality configurations to hide or display content, or change how certain things function.
Link settings enable you to configure experiences or interlinking between widgets.

Note: While most widgets have some functionality configurations, it is possible for a widget to not have functionality configurations. If no configurations are available, the Functionality area displays a message that there are no applicable configurations.

Understanding Configuration Options

The Opower Configuration Tool can be used to understand the functionality configuration options available for widgets. The simplest first step is to navigate to the options for a widget and review the option titles, help text, and widget preview.

Be aware that not all configuration changes will impact the widget preview. Modifying particular functionality may not impact the customer state used for the preview or it may impact another screen or area of the widget not available on the preview. In this scenario, user acceptance testing may be required to confirm configuration changes. For information on publishing changes to an environment for testing purposes, see Publishing Configurations.

In addition to reviewing configuration option names, help text provides additional insight and explanation for configuration options.

Note: The steps below provide general steps to review configuration options. For an example scenario of widget configuration, see Example Widget Configuration.

To Review Functionality Configuration Options

From the Opower Configuration Tool, select Widgets, select the widget to configure, and then select Functionality. The functionality options for the widget are displayed.
Select a tab to review the available configuration options. The titles along with the widget preview provide insights into each configuration option.
Hover over the information icon for a configuration option to display the help text for that option. This information gives important details about the configuration such as when the option is applicable, the behavior of each available option, and the resulting user experience.
To preview how a configuration change impacts a widget, update a configuration value and select Save Changes. The widget preview updates to reflect the change.