Start, pause & finish
The experiment lifecycle in ABlyft, from draft to running, paused and archived.
Every experiment has a status that tells you whether visitors can see it. You change the status yourself, or let a schedule do it. This page explains the four statuses, how to switch between them and how to finish an experiment.
The statuses
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Draft | The experiment is being built. It is not part of your snippet, so nobody sees it. A new experiment starts as a draft. |
| Preview | You and your colleagues can check the experiment with a preview link. Normal visitors do not see it. |
| Running | The experiment is live. Eligible visitors are assigned to a variation and data is collected. |
| Paused | The experiment is no longer delivered. Visitors see your original page again. |
The current status is shown at the top of the experiment, in the menu button Experiment is in draft, Experiment is in preview, Experiment is running or Experiment is paused. In the experiment list, you can filter by status and the list is sorted with running experiments first.
There is no Stop button
ABlyft has no separate "Stop" status. To end an experiment, pause it. When you no longer need it, archive it (see Finish an experiment).
Before you can preview or start
An experiment needs at least one variation, one page and one goal. Otherwise ABlyft shows the message Experiment cannot be started (or Experiment cannot be set to preview) and lists what is missing, for example "Provide at least one page and goal".
If you are not sure how to set up these building blocks, see Your first experiment.
Change the status
Open the experiment. You can change the status in two places:
- The buttons next to the status menu: Start, Pause and Preview mode. Only the actions that make sense for the current status are shown.
- The status menu itself (Experiment is …), which also contains Set back to draft.
Every change asks for a confirmation.
| Action | Available when | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Preview mode | Draft, running, paused | The experiment becomes available for preview only. |
| Start | Draft, preview, paused | The experiment goes live. |
| Pause (also Pause experiment in the menu) | Running | The experiment is no longer delivered. |
| Set back to draft | Preview, running, paused | The experiment returns to draft. |
You need the role member, admin or owner to change the status. Viewers can only look. See Roles & permissions.
Starting a paused experiment continues it
Start on a paused experiment makes it live again. It does not create a new experiment. If you want to begin with fresh data, clone the experiment instead.
Preview
Use the preview status to check your variations, targeting and goals before real visitors see anything. The experiment page then shows a Preview box with the preview links. How to use it is explained in Preview & QA.
Start
- Open the experiment and click Start.
- Confirm.
- The status changes to Running and ABlyft publishes your changes.
Once the experiment has been started, a Results button appears at the top of the experiment.
Pause
Click Pause and confirm. The experiment is removed from your snippet and visitors see the original page. The results you collected so far stay available.
You can also pause several experiments at once in the experiment list: select them, open the bulk actions and choose Pause selected. In the row menu of an experiment, Pause is also available.
Set back to draft
Set back to draft moves the experiment to the draft status. Use it if you want to rebuild an experiment that is in preview or paused. If the experiment was active (running or in preview), ABlyft publishes the change.
Publishing delay
When you start, pause or otherwise change a live experiment, ABlyft publishes a new version of your snippet. In the top bar, the indicator Publishing … with a countdown shows how long this takes. The delay exists because visitors' browsers may keep using a cached copy of the snippet.
Until the countdown has finished, some visitors can still see the previous state. The cache time is set in the snippet settings.
Finish an experiment
When you have enough data:
- Pause the experiment so that visitors see the original page again.
- Look at the results.
- Archive the experiment when you no longer need it in the list. See Clone & archive.
If you want ABlyft to end experiments for you, there are two options:
- A schedule pauses the experiment at a given date, after a number of participants or after a number of days.
- The project setting Auto-pause on significance pauses a running experiment automatically, see Primary and secondary goals.