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Verify by link (hosted flow)

Verify by link

Verify by link (aka hosted flow) lets you implement Persona with little to no engineering effort. With Verify by link, you send users a URL (via email or text) that takes them to your Persona-hosted identity verification flow.

This flow is fully customizable with your own brand (logo, colors) and text. See Configuring your Theme for more information on customizing the look and feel of your Persona identity verification flow.

There are two different ways to implement verify by link:

  1. Dynamically create Inquiries when a user clicks the link
  2. Create a link in advance for each user (via API or Dashboard)

Dynamically create Inquiries via verify by link

You can use verify by link to create inquiries dynamically when a user enters the Persona-hosted flow. This means that no inquiry is "created" until a user clicks on the link and sees the first page of your identity verification flow.

We recommend creating inquiries dynamically if you are sending these links via an email campaign or mass email, and you are ok with a user potentially going through the flow multiple times.

Here are the steps to use verify by link to dynamically create inquiries:

  1. Find the hosted flow link in the Integration section of your dashboard. If you have more than one template, there will be one link per template.
    • If you send this URL as-is, each time a user clicks this link, Persona will dynamically create a new inquiry.
    • If the user exits out of the flow and returns to the link later, each time the user returns they will create a new inquiry.

  2. While you can use the link as-is (per above) we highly recommend that you pass in a reference-ID as a parameter on the end of your link. A reference ID is the unique ID you use to identify a user in your own system. By appending a reference ID to the end of your link, you can easily find the associated inquiry for a given user by searching for reference ID. The reference ID also allows us to consolidate all inquiries for a given user under a single Account.

    Example: If your link is: https://withpersona.com/verify?template-id=tmpl_JAZjHuAT738Q63BdgCuEJQre and you want the inquiry to be generated with a reference-ID for user_id1, you can append the reference ID to the end of your link by adding &reference-id=your_user_id1. Your new link will now be: https://withpersona.com/verify?template-id=tmpl_JAZjHuAT738Q63BdgCuEJQre&reference-id=your_user_id1. When the user clicks into this link, the subsequent inquiry that is created will have user_id1 associated with the inquiry.

  3. Please see our technical documentation for more information on reference IDs and other parameters.
  4. You can automate passing in parameters by setting up an email template or macro that generates the link with a unique reference ID.
  5. To personalize your link, you can specify a subdomain name (for example: mycompany.withpersona.com) in the integration page of your dashboard under "Subdomain."
  6. Once you've created your link, go ahead and try it out in sandbox. On the left hand side of your dashboard, you can toggle to sandbox and find your sandbox link in the integration page. Afterwards, you can view the inquiry on your inquiry page.
  7. If you want to be notified when a user completes their inquiry, you can set up a webhook or create a queue in your Persona dashboard to be notified of specific inquiry events.

Create a single unique Persona-hosted link in advance for each user

Instead of dynamically creating inquiries when a user first enters the identity verification flow, you can create an inquiry in advance and send the user a unique link to that inquiry.

We recommend creating a link in advance for each user if you want each user to only go through a unique inquiry one time.

There are two ways in which you can create a unique Persona-hosted link in advance:

(1) You can create a link to an inquiry via API. This requires some engineering support, but is the best option if you have a high volume of inquiries to create.

  • We highly recommend that you pass in a reference-ID as an attribute. A reference ID is the unique ID you use to identify a user in your own system. By passing in a reference ID, you can easily find the associated inquiry for a given user by searching for reference ID.

(2) You can manually Create a Link to an Inquiry in Advance in the Dashboard. This is helpful if your operations or support team needs to create a one-off inquiry on occasion for your user.

FAQs

Where can I find my hosted flow link?

Log in to the Persona Dashboard. On the bottom right, decide if you want to view your hosted flow link in sandbox or in production and use the "View Sandbox" toggle to select the option. Then go to the integration page of your Dashboard. Select the template and you will view the corresponding hosted flow link.

When do hosted flow links expire?

By default, the hosted flow will expire within 24 hours of the time the inquiry is created if the user does not go on to either complete or fail verification. However the expiration period can be configured on a template by template basis. Please reach out to support@withpersona.com or your Persona contact if you'd like to change your expiration period.

What can I do if a link (or the inquiry) has expired and I want to allow the user to continue in the same inquiry where they left off?

If the link has expired (resulting in an expired inquiry) and you want to allow the user to continue where they left off rather than starting a new inquiry, you can do this by Resuming the inquiry. To do this, find the inquiry in the Persona Dashboard. At the top right hand side of the inquiry details page for any expired inquiry, you'll see a Resume button. This will generate a unique link that you can send to that individual to allow them to resume their inquiry and complete the verification from where they left off. This one-time link is active for 24 hours after it is generated, and once the individual opens the link they have 15 minutes to complete the inquiry.

 

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