Configure help popups for layouts

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 1 minute to read

    • Implement buyside help popups in CPQ.

    Help popups give the user more information about a field in a layout. They resemble the tooltip message display type, but differ in the following ways:

    • Tool tips appear only when the condition of a message rule is met, whereas help popups are always present on the layout
    • Tool tips display only plain text, whereas help popups can include hyperlinks, lists, italics, bold text, newlines, images, and dynamic text
    • Tool tips appear on hover, whereas help popup icons must be clicked to display messages
    Note:
    To learn how to display a message that appears as the result of a message rule, see Change how messages are displayed to the end user.

    Popup appearance

    The image below shows a popup message that appears when the user clicks its help icon. To illustrate dynamic text in a help popup, the second image shows additional text that appears as the result of a selected picklist option.

    Help message popup

    Help message popup showing dynamic text

    To implement a message popup, add a column header called "help" in cell K1 of your CSV layout.

    For a tier, columnset, or field, the format for a help popup is as follows:

    {"content":"<help body>","heading":"<help heading>","trigger":{"type":"icon","url":"<image.url>”,“label”: “<Label>”}}

    To assign the popup a button instead of an icon, use "type":"button". The button resembles the following: Keyboard icon

    If you don't specify an image URL, a question mark will appear: Question mark icon

    If you don't specify a label, the default value is "Help."

    Formatting the popup contents

    The following table shows how to control the formatting of the content of a message popup.
    Table 1. Message popup formatting options
    Formatting option Syntax Output Notes
    Bold Bold text [text display in bold] Can use underscores instead of asterisks
    Italic Italic text [text displays in italics] Can use underscore instead of asterisk
    Unordered list Item\r- Item\r- Item
    • Item
    • Item
    • Item
    Ordered list 1.Item\r2. Item\r3. Item
    1. Item
    2. Item
    3. Item
    Newline 
    first line\nsecond line

    first line

    second line
    Link [link display text](https://www.google.com) [link display text appears as a clickable link] Javascript will be sanitized
    Image (GIF) ![alt text](image url \"title text\") Quotes around the title text must be escaped
    Dynamic text {{ fieldVariableName }} Outputs the value of the selected field in the text