Just like the mail merge in your favorite document editor, you can add variables to any node in the title, content, question or button text, and pass in values to replace those variables.

For example, a software company wants to pass in the latest version number into their troubleshooter tree, without having to change the tree each time the version number changes. Mission accomplished by inserting variables into the tree by adding a couple of parameters to the URL.

Here's a quick primer on adding merge variables:

1. Edit a node, and insert text like "#NAME#", "#VERSION#' anywhere into the node where you want to substitute a variable.
2. Pass the name of the variables, and their corresponding values, into the URL for hosting or deploying your tree. 

Recommended method: Prefix any variable names with zv_ to pass in values. So to pass along NAME and VERSION variables, you would add this to the URL:

&zv_NAME=Joe+Smith&zv_VERSION=54.0

Deprecated but still working: You can separate the variables with a | character. Just add a string like this to the end of the Zingtree hosted URL or within the embed code:

&variables=NAME|VERSION&values=Joe+Smith|54.0

• URL Link Substitution using Variables