The Circuit Glossary is a collection of definitions of words commonly used at Circuit that you may not know or may have forgotten! In this article, you will be able to brush up on your Circuit terminology from A-Z, as well as view some helpful diagrams of what your virtual tour will look like for users. 📋

360° Scenes are a type of scene that is created using a panorama and built up with hotspots.

Audio guide is an auditory experience of the guide card text that allows for a more accessible experience, as visitors can spend more time looking at the visual media while also being able to listen to written content. There are two ways to utilize audio:

Calls to Action (or CTAs) are used to send users to pages on your site or to open a form and get leads. There are two main types of CTAs, with their own subtypes:

Categories are how labels are organized within the Personalization feature in the CMS. Users can see categories as well, but they can only personalize a tour using labels.

CMS refers to the Content Management System, a tool designed to help you build your virtual tour without needing to code it yourself.

Collections are a system in which you can organize your media (images and embedded videos) in the CMS. Collections function similar to folders on your computer.

Descriptions are the descriptive portion of guide cards, scene cards, and tour cards. All descriptions are recommended to be written using user-facing language, or in the second person. Descriptions should be short, succinct, and quick and easy to read.

Drafts are scenes, tours, or tour groups in the CMS that have been created, worked on, and saved, but not yet published. For drafts to go Live, they must be published.

Email Forms are lead capture forms that can be set up directly in your CMS. Submissions are stored in the Circuit CMS and emailed to you.

Embed Videos will appear in the video gallery once added, and will then be ready for embedding into your tours. Videos that are added to the Circuit CMS are different than images, because they are not uploaded directly: these videos must have been uploaded somewhere else first, and provided with a YouTube, Vimeo, or QQ link.

The Finished Tour Screen occurs once the user has finished viewing every scene in a tour. They will then be redirected to new and similar tours.

Forms are lead capture tools. There are three form types you can use to collect leads in Circuit: Hosted Forms, Email Forms, and iFrame Forms.

Gallery Scenes are a type of scene that showcases a series of images and embedded videos, which are very useful for creating virtual photobooks and can be used for lead generation.

Guide cards are used to tell your story by describing scenes and hotspots to your visitors using text, visuals, and audio.

Hidden Tours are tours that are live but not visible on your tour homepage.

Hotspots are interactive annotations that you can add to your 360° scenes, often used to highlight key information in a scene. Hotspots also help users to better experience 360° scenes, and spend more time on page.

Hosted Forms are lead capture forms where Circuit hosts the code for you. These forms offer more control over styling and what happens after the user submits.

iFrame Forms are embedded lead capture forms where you customize the styling.

Labels belong to larger categories within the Personalization feature. Labels are what are assigned to scenes. Users choose which labels they want to view, and are then shown tours that best meet their preferences.

Live scenes, tours, and tour groups have been published and are now accessible from the frontend of your virtual tour. They can be Unpublished to be returned to a Draft state.

Live + Draft scenes, tours, and tour groups have had changes made to them and saved since being published. If changes are made and the user clicks Save Draft, there are now two versions of this content: the Live version without the new changes, and the Draft version with the new changes. Publishing Live + Draft content will make the content fully Live.

Maps is a feature of Circuit that allows for mapping of all of your buildings and important landmarks, assigning scenes to their real-life locations, and unlocking navigational possibilities for your virtual tour.

Matterport Embed Scenes are a type of scene that is an interactive 3D model of a room or building.

Personalization allows visitors to create their own unique journey as they go through your content, choosing which scenes are most relevant to them. You can create Categories and Labels to organize your content with Personalization.

Projects and Groups are how scenes are organized within the CMS, usually by campus or city for the project, and by building for the group.

Publish will publish the content you have been working on, whether that is a scene, tour, or tour group. It is recommended that you only Publish content once it is fully completed; until then, you can always save it as a draft.

Save Draft will save the content you have been working on, whether that is a scene, tour, or tour group. It is very important to Save after every change you make, so that none of your work is lost.

Scenes are essentially the building blocks or “tour stops” of your tours. There are three types of scenes: 360° Scenes, Gallery Scenes, and Matterport Embed Scenes.

Slugs are the unique identifying part of a web address, typically at the end of the URL.

Each individual scene on the tour has a unique URL that can be shared with prospects.

Splash Pages welcome users into the tour and provide context for what's coming next. A splash page is another entry point into a tour that you can provide to visitors if you would like them to view a specific/single tour, by sending them a direct link. A tour's splash page may also be referred to as its Splash Screen.

Tours are essentially a playlist of your 360° and gallery scenes, and are displayed as tour cards on your tour homepage. There is no limit on how many tours you can create. Think of scenes in your tours like songs on your playlists: you can have one song on multiple playlists if you like.

A Tour Detail Page is an introductory page for a specific tour. On this page, users can see either the Tour Default Image or the Tour Detail Image as the heading banner, the tour guide, tour title, features available, and all tour stops. From this page, users can start the tour.

Tour Groups are groups of tours of a similar theme. For example, campuses, areas of interest, etc. You must have at least one tour group for your tours to be accessible.

Tour guides can be images of people, your mascot, or even your logo. Your tour guide will introduce the user to each tour, and lead them through the scenes and hotspots.

The Tour Homepage is the main entry point into your tour, and has global navigation of all tour groups and tours, as well as easy access to Personalization.

The Tour Menu is used to navigate to previous or later scenes and explore other available tours.

Now that you have a grasp of some of the most commonly-used Circuit terminology, click the link below to learn how to begin navigating the Circuit CMS.

Send us a message and we will be happy to assist you.