What is the carousel?

Table of Contents

• Standard carousel
  • Showcase vs Standard layout
• Personalized carousel

Standard carousel

The carousel is a vital component of Simpplr's interface. It allows the most important or most recent content to be displayed for all your users on their home page, or on the front page of any site within the intranet. 

As an App manager, you can edit the content that appears in the Home carousel by hovering your mouse over the upper right-hand corner of the carousel to make the drop-down ellipsis. Click the ellipsis, then click Edit carousel.

Search for new content or campaigns to add to the carousel display at the top, or add an external link by pasting the URL into the box labeled Webpage or video URL. Note, if personalized carousel is enabled, you won't be able to add content manually. More on this below.

 

Remove content currently visible in the carousel by clicking x next to each piece of content you wish to remove. Note this will not actually remove the content from your intranet, only the carousel. 

Clicking the hamburger icon next to the x button allows you to click and drag content to a different order. This will reflect the order in which content is displayed on the carousel. 

 

Showcase vs Standard layout

There are two options to choose from for displaying your carousel content; showcase and standard. The showcase layout (recommended) will display your content as an ever-moving wheel that moves on the home dashboard. It also allows you to toggle the carousel and see different content displayed. By clicking the ellipsis in the upper right, you can stop or continue the auto-play of the moving content.

The standard layout shows one piece of content on the carousel. You still have the option to manually toggle to the next piece of content with this layout. 

The Edit dashboard icon at the bottom right-hand corner of the page also allows you to edit the home carousel. Just click the icon, then Edit carousel. 

What’s changed

• The auto-play setting is now persisted more reliably:

  • If you turn auto-play off, the carousel is less likely to start playing again unexpectedly the next time you visit.

  • If you prefer auto-play on, your choice is also respected more consistently.

• The feature focuses on retaining your preference over time, reducing the need to repeatedly adjust the setting.

This improvement builds on earlier carousel auto-play enhancements (e.g., support for native video auto-play and speed controls).

Who this is for

• All users who interact with carousels on Home or Site pages.

• Especially helpful for:

  • Users who are sensitive to motion and prefer static content.

  • Users who like auto-play and want it to stay on without frequent resets.

Admins benefit indirectly by providing a more stable, user-friendly carousel behavior without additional configuration.

How the improved retention works for end users

When you interact with a carousel that supports auto-play:

1. Auto-play may be on by default, depending on your organization’s settings and accessibility configuration.

2. You can change the behavior using the carousel controls, for example:

   • Turning auto-play off (stopping automatic slide transitions).

   • Turning auto-play on (allowing the carousel to advance slides automatically).

3. After you make your choice, the system now remembers your preference more effectively, so:

   • When you return to the same carousel later, it is more likely to honor your previous choice.

   • You spend less time re-applying your preferred setting.

Admin / app manager notes

There is no special configuration required to “turn on” the improved retention. However:

• Admins still control the default behavior of carousel auto-play:

  • Whether auto-play is enabled at all.

  • How carousels behave initially (for example, off by default to meet accessibility guidelines).

• Once defaults are set, the improved retention logic works on top of that, helping ensure that:

  • User-driven changes to auto-play (on/off) stick more consistently.

  • The experience is aligned with motion/accessibility expectations (e.g., minimizing unexpected motion for users who prefer it off).

If your organization has strict accessibility requirements, you can still configure carousels so that auto-play is off by default, and this feature will help ensure users who reinforce that preference don’t see it overridden.

These improvements work alongside other carousel enhancements, such as:

• Carousel auto-play and speed controls (e.g., Slow / Medium / Fast when auto-play is enabled).

• Native video auto-play support in Home and Site carousels.

• Accessibility updates ensuring users can pause, stop, or hide auto-playing content and that auto-play respects organizational accessibility policies.

Personalized carousel

App managers can enable the option for users to have a personalized carousel, meaning every user will see curated content personalized for them in addition to the content the App manager has set. Once that curated content is viewed, it will move to a different place in the carousel, making unviewed content the first shown on the user's home carousel. 

Content will remain in the personalized carousel for 14 days, after which it will be removed. If content has been removed or if the App manager did not fill the carousel with at least six pieces of content, Simpplr's content recommendation engine will add personalized recommended content for each user behind any remaining curated content. 

When enabling the personalized carousel for the first time, it's best practice for App managers to remove all existing content from the carousel, then add back only what you want users to see that's of high importance. Reason being, if content remains in the carousel for 14 days, it will automatically be removed so other curated content can take its place. 

To enable personalized carousel:

1. Click the menu icon in the top right of the carousel and click Edit carousel. Or click Edit dashboard > Edit carousel. 
2. Under Personalized carousel, click Enable. 

When personalized carousel is enabled, content that's been in the carousel longer than 14 days will automatically be replaced with fresh recommended content. The order of content in the carousel prioritizes content added by app managers over recommended content. 

If more than six pieces of content are manually added to the carousel, this will essentially void the personalization. If you want users to see personalized content, best practice is to not add more than two or three items manually, as manually added items will always take precedence in users' carousels over personalized content.

Every piece of content will show page analytics (if applicable) and the number of days since it was added to the carousel.

If you as an individual user published content, or have already seen it, you won't receive personalized content recommendations for it. This is because Simpplr is counting you as already having viewed it. This happens often with smaller organizations where most content is published through one or two users who by default see all the content before anyone else.