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How to repair and update a variant during an optimization

Joshua Barnard
  • Updated

This article explains how to repair a variant during a live optimization without losing performance data and having combinations deactivated.

The variant repair feature must be enabled for your organization. Contact support if you need to use this feature.

On this page:

Actions & consequences

Early in a project launch, a variant sometimes needs to be fixed without losing the data collected about it so far. Evolv considers any change to a variant as a new variant unless it's repaired.

Repairing a variant allows you to splice a change into an existing variant while keeping the existing data.

Repair variants sparingly. Changing a variant can affect its performance, particularly if what the experiment user sees changes significantly. If ever in doubt, create a Zendesk ticket for help from our teams.

  • Use in anticipation for a change to the site that will break a variant.
  • Do not use to fix a broken variant because the data collected on a broken variant is not valid.
  • Grey area when the variant has collected a large amount of good data relative to a short broken period.

Steps to repair a variant

Repairing variants lets you preserve its performance data, so only variants with data can be repaired. This means they must either exist in an active combination or are part of a deactivated combination. If the variant doesn't have any data you can update it the usual way without having to repair it.

  1. Upload your changes to Draft.
  2. Finish the import; you'll see "DELETED" and "NEW" labels for the variant that changed.
    • This is the standard way of changing a variant.
    • Evolv removes the existing variant and creates a new one in its place.
  3. Expand the dropdown for the DELETED option, and you'll see a link to Repair & update.
  4. Click the link and a modal appears.
  5. Select the NEW option, tick the checkbox, and press the FINISH button.
  6. The variant label has changed to UPDATED.
  7. Move to Live when ready.

Frequently asked questions

I want to update a disabled variant. How do I do that?

You can only repair enabled variants.

  1. Enable the variant in Draft.
  2. Export the variables.
  3. Make changes to the project using the Web Editor.
  4. Import the variables.

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