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What technical precautions should I take to offer a solid paywall experience in case of errors?
What technical precautions should I take to offer a solid paywall experience in case of errors?

Assuring security and the continuity of the user experience, even in case of technical issues, thanks to an advanced integration.

Madeleine White avatar
Written by Madeleine White
Updated over a week ago

As of any solution that provides a direct service to end users, Poool makes sure you have access to a certain number of configuration elements that allow you to preserve your users' experience when facing the paywall while an error is occurring.

These 'errors' can be triggered by several factors: slow connectivity, browser issue, page upload taking too much time, third party scripts creating interferences... and so on.

Here are a few methods to help you implement Poool in a very robust way!

Master the paywall behaviour in case of errors

First, it is important to understand that an error triggered does not necessarily mean that there is a service issue on Poool's side. The best way to get informed when something's wrong is to subscribe to this alert: https://status.poool.fr/. You will see that Poool's uptime always remains around 99,90%.
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In most cases of error, it deals with some specific issue on the publisher's side or on the reader's side, that requires a careful look at it.

When spotting an issue, you could be willing to have Poool adopt a specific behaviour, for exemple sending a Google Analytics event, or deleting the paywall. To do so, you simply can use our 'onError' event. It will trigger in case of error and will execute the logic that you'll have defined within its callback.
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Find out more about this event on our technical documentation:

Preserve the look & feel of the paywall no matter what

By default, when calling Poool on your website, the styles set up on the Dashboard are retrieved then applied to your paywall. When a connectivity issue occurs, we make sure that a Poool's security paywall shows anyway. However, it is a "default" paywall, which means it is not branded with your media's colors and images.
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To make sure the default paywall remains branded no matter what happens, it is possible to implement several style elements into your Javascript configuration (and not only on the Dashboard). Find out more in our technical documentation (previous version & new version).
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Then, you can set up the 'layout':

πŸ“Œ Poool script - previous version (Poool Legacy)

poool('style', 'layout', 'portrait');

πŸ“Œ Poool script - new version

access.styles('layout', 'portrait');

... Your logotype:

πŸ“Œ Poool script - previous version (Poool Legacy)

poool('style', 'brand_logo', 'https://mon-media.fr/mon-logo.png');

πŸ“Œ Poool script - new version

access.styles('brand_logo', 'https://my-media.com/my-logo.png');

... Or even some custom CSS:

πŸ“Œ Poool script - previous version (Poool Legacy)

poool('style', 'custom_css', 'body{ background: #F00; }');

πŸ“Œ Poool script - new version

access.styles('custom_css', 'body{ background: #F00; }');

This graphical "security" allows you to maintain a continuous brand experience.

Show the right URLs for subscription and login

If the paywall can't connect to the server, it won't retrieve the URLs that were set up either and give them to the default paywall. To avoid any trouble, it is possible to add, in the Javascript configuration, two elements allowing you to keep redirecting your users:

URL to the subscription offers page

πŸ“Œ Poool script - previous version (Poool Legacy)

poool('config', 'subscription_url', 'http://mysite.com/subscribe?return_url={return_url}');

πŸ“Œ Poool script - new version

access.config('subscription_url', 'http://mysite.com/subscribe?return_url={return_url}&user_id={user_id}');

URL to the login page

πŸ“Œ Poool script - previous version (Poool Legacy)

poool('config', 'login_url', 'http://mysite.com/login?return_url={return_url}');

πŸ“Œ Poool script - new version

access.config('login_url', 'http://mysite.com/login?return_url={return_url}&user_id={user_id}');

These configuration line will have priority over the values set up on the Dashboard, when the paywall is not able to retrieve the info.

Keep a paywall in case of Javascript deactivation

In order to assure a reader experience even in case of Javascript deactivation, we've implemented a "noscript" paywall:

<iframe src="<a href="https://poool.host/ns.html?id=">
https://poool.host/ns.html?id=</a>VOTREIDENTIFIANTPOOOL">
</iframe>

Obviously, it will be mandatory for you to manage the presence and the size of the content that is available on the page, in case of JS deactivation.

This "noscript" paywall is only visual so it does not contain any locking logic. It shows a default paywall (required subscription).

Don't hesitate to get in touch via Intercom.
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