Getting Started

Step 1: Make sure the GrowSurf Universal Code is installed

When you have the GrowSurf Universal Code installed on a webpage, that webpage has access to the JavaScript Web API, and you are ready for development. You can test this by entering growsurf.open() in your browser's Developer Console.

grsfReady Event Listener

The GrowSurf Universal Code loads asynchronously, so if you intend on executing any growsurf functions on page load, you must wait until the library has completely loaded.

When loaded successfully, the GrowSurf Universal Code will dispatch a grsfReady event notifying any event listeners that it is ready for use. Only then will any GrowSurf JavaScript Web API functions work.

Example of using grsfReady

// Listen and wait for the Growsurf Universal Code to initialize
window.addEventListener('grsfReady', () => {
  console.log('GrowSurf is Ready!');
  // Your code goes here.... 
});

In some cases the GrowSurf Universal script may already be available and the grsfReady event may have already fired. This depends on how long it takes your scripts to load and can happen for various other reasons. If your grsfReadycallback isn't being invoked on thegrsfReady event we recommend you check to see if the growsurf script is already available before adding the event listener callback with a conditional like this...

// Check to see if GrowSurf is available
if(!window.growsurf) {
  // Listen and wait for the Growsurf Universal Code to initialize
  window.addEventListener('grsfReady', () => {
    console.log('GrowSurf is Ready!');
    // You code goes here.... 
  });
} else {
  console.log('GrowSurf is Already Available');
  // You code goes here....
}

If you are executing growsurf functions not on page load, we recommend you wrap them in a conditional like this...

Example of using a conditional

// Check if the GrowSurf Universal Code is present
if (window.growsurf) {
    // Then, open the GrowSurf window
    growsurf.open();
}

URL Parameters

Most of the time, it is not necessary to use GrowSurf's URL parameters, however there are certain cases where they may come in handy (e.g, promoting your referral campaign in the footer of your customer promotional/transactional emails).

Example Use Case #1:

Let's say you've set up your site so that when a new visitor signs up, they get redirected to https://yoursite.com/thank_you and this page is where you have the GrowSurf embedded form installed. If the participant cleared their browser cookies and returned to the /thank_you page, they would not see the logged-in participant view.

Solution: You can set the grsf_email URL parameter (e.g, https://yoursite.com/thank_you?grsf_email=bob@loblaw.com ) to automatically log them in. This is useful when you are sending out an email blast to your customers, and you want them to always see the logged-in participant view.

Example Use Case #2:

Let's say that you only want to add new participants to your GrowSurf campaign when they show high share-intent, and visit a specific webpage that you set up at https://yoursite.com/refer (i.e, this page would contain GrowSurf embeddable elements and act as a dedicated referrer portal for your participants).

Solution: You could set grsf_email, grsf_first_name, and grsf_last_name URL parameters to automatically enroll them as new participants. This way, the participants in your campaign are only people who have high-intent to share.

List of URL Parameters

Next Steps

• ​View Tutorials​

• ​View Embeddable Elements​

• ​View Single Page Applications​

• ​View API Reference​