Using the AI Assistant in Countdown Timer Bar

Dot, the AI Assistant in the Countdown Timer Bar, is your built-in helper for configuring your bar quickly and easily. Whether you want to adjust colors, set up a countdown schedule, or target specific customers — just ask, and it will guide you through the settings or make changes on your behalf.

On this page:

• Accessing the AI Assistant
• Tips for Best Results
• What the AI Assistant Can Do
• Things to Keep in Mind

Accessing the AI Assistant

To open the AI Assistant, go to the configuration page of your bar in the app. You'll find the AI Assistant button floating in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Click it to open the chat window.

Once opened, you'll be greeted with a welcome message and a set of suggested prompts to help you get started quickly.

Example: Changing the Timer Style

If you type "Switch the timer style to square tiles and set the card color to black with white numbers", the assistant will apply these changes for you. You're free to edit it before saving the changes.

Tips for Best Results

• Be specific — instead of "change the timer," try "Switch to a session timer with a 30-minute countdown."
• Break it down — for complex setups, give one instruction at a time.
• Combine tasks — you can mix appearance and targeting in a single prompt for faster configuration (e.g., "Set the background to a red gradient and show this bar only on product pages").

What the AI Assistant Can Do

• Content & style — Edit your message, font size, colors, background, and visual effects.
• Timer setup — Choose your timer type (Standard, Daily, Interval, or Session), configure countdown end times, set schedules, and adjust timer style and labels.
• Display — Set bar position, schedule start and end times, and control visibility.
• Targeting — Target by pages, devices, customer segments, markets, visitor locations, or traffic sources.
• General guidance — Get step-by-step help navigating any Countdown Timer Bar feature.

Sample Prompts to Try

Not sure where to start? Try any of these:

• "Set this up as a daily timer that counts down to 5 PM every day, using my store's timezone"
• "Switch the timer style to flip clock and set the card color to black with white numbers"
• "Set the background to a gradient from left to right, dark red to orange"
• "Add a motion effect to make the bar more eye-catching"
• "Change the timer labels to French"
• "Show this bar only on product pages and hide it on the homepage"
• "Apply this bar to mobile devices only"
• "Target this bar to customers in the US market only"
• "Set the countdown to end on November 30 at 11:59 PM"
• "Make the message text bold and change the font color to white"

You can click a suggested prompt in the chat window, or type your own question freely.

Things to Keep in Mind

The AI Assistant is powerful, but there are a few things it can't do yet:

• Create new bars or display more than one bar at a time — bar creation and multi-bar management must be done from the main app.
• Edit or bypass Shopify theme files — the assistant can only make changes within the app itself.
• Use deprecated visitor-location geo-targeting — only Shopify Markets targeting is supported.
• Remove the seconds column from the Flip Clock timer style — seconds can only be hidden for Plain Numbers, Square Tiles, and Circle Tiles styles.
• Complete page targeting that requires the product/collection picker — the assistant can set URL or keyword-based targeting, but selecting specific products or collections must be done using the app's picker. See Targeting: Pages.
• Edit built-in motion effect code — motion effects can be applied through the app, but customizing effect code requires the Custom Code feature, which the assistant cannot access.
• Fix placement or rendering issues (e.g., bars covering the header or other page elements) — for rendering problems, please contact Hextom support.
• Perform bar table actions such as duplicate, publish, archive, or delete — these must be done from the bar table in the app's main UI.
• Make changes that require unsupported built-in options — some advanced customizations require manual edits via the Custom Code feature.

Need Help?

If you have any questions or run into issues, reach out to us at help@hextom.com — we're happy to help!