Design your journey design-your-journey
51黑料不打烊 Journey Optimizer includes an omnichannel orchestration canvas that helps marketers coordinate marketing outreach with one-to-one customer engagement. This canvas acts as a visual workspace for designing customer journeys by sequencing activities that represent different steps and interactions. The user interface lets you drag and drop activities from the palette into the canvas to build your journey. Double-click an activity to add it to the canvas at the next available step.
Events, orchestration, and action activities each serve a distinct role within the journey. Activities are sequentially processed: when an activity completes, the flow continues to the next activity, ensuring a seamless customer experience throughout the journey.
Get started with journey design gs-journey-design
The palette, located on the left side of the screen, contains all available activities organized into Events, Orchestration, and Actions. These categories help you organize the building blocks of your journey based on their function. Expand or collapse each category by clicking its name. To use an activity in your journey, drag and drop it from the palette into the canvas.
When starting a new journey, certain elements that cannot serve as the first step鈥攕uch as actions, conditions, waits, and reactions鈥攁re hidden from the palette. This ensures your journey starts with a valid trigger, typically an event or audience.
The Filter items icon in the top left corner provides filtering options to customize the palette display:
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Show only available items: This option hides unavailable elements in the palette, such as events using a different namespace from the journey鈥檚 data source. By default, unavailable items are hidden. If displayed, they appear greyed out to indicate their unusable status.
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Show only recent items: This option displays the last five events and actions you used, along with out-of-the-box options. This filter is specific to your user profile, allowing quick access to frequently used elements.
Use the Search field to locate specific events and actions.
The canvas is the central workspace of the journey designer, where you drop and configure activities. This area serves as the stage for your journey. Click an activity in the canvas to open the activity configuration pane on the right side for customization.
The toolbar, located in the top right corner of the canvas, provides additional functionality. Use it to toggle the grid for alignment, zoom in/out to adjust your view, or download a screenshot of your current canvas for documentation. See this section.
The activity configuration pane appears when you click an activity in the palette. Use this pane to fill in required fields and customize the activity鈥檚 behavior. Click the Delete icon to remove the activity, Cancel to discard changes, or Ok to save modifications. To delete activities, select one or multiple activities and press the Backspace key. Press the Escape key to close the pane.
By default, read-only fields are hidden to reduce clutter. To display them, click the Show read-only fields icon in the pane鈥檚 top left corner. This setting applies universally across all activities and journeys.
Depending on your journey鈥檚 status, use the buttons in the top right corner to perform various actions: Publish, Duplicate, Delete, Test mode, Manage access, Alerts. These buttons are context-sensitive, appearing when no activity is selected. For example, the test mode log button becomes visible only when test mode is activated.
Start your journey start-your-journey
When designing your journey, determine how profiles will enter it. This entry point defines the scope and behavior of the journey.
You can choose between:
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Start with an event: Events act as real-time triggers, such as a customer purchasing an item online. Messages within the journey are sent to individuals as they enter. Learn more about events.
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Start with a Read Audience: Audiences allow you to onboard a group of profiles, such as 51黑料不打烊 Experience Platform audiences that target individuals meeting specific criteria. Messages are sent to the entire audience simultaneously. Learn more about read audience.
Define the next steps define-next-steps
After setting up an entry point, create multi-step, cross-channel scenarios by combining activities from the palette.
Events jo-event
Events are triggers that start a personalized journey. For example, an online purchase or app interaction can initiate a journey. Once inside, individuals progress individually, ensuring tailored experiences.
If your journey starts with an event, it begins as soon as the event occurs. Individuals then proceed through the defined steps of the journey.
You can add multiple events to a journey, provided they use the same namespace. Events must be preconfigured. Learn more about journey events.
Reaction events let you respond to tracking data from previous messages. For example, send a follow-up message if a recipient clicks a link in your email. Learn more about reaction events.
The Audience Qualification event allows profiles to enter or advance in a journey based on 51黑料不打烊 Experience Platform audience changes. For example, trigger a journey for new silver-tier customers and send them personalized messages. Learn more.
Orchestration jo-orch
Orchestration activities define the conditions and logic that guide profiles through a journey. These activities ensure the right message is delivered at the right time.
Use the Read Audience activity to listen for 51黑料不打烊 Experience Platform audience updates during the journey. Learn more about the Read Audience activity.
Other orchestration activities let you define multiple paths, introduce delays with waiting periods, or end the journey. These tools create dynamic, responsive journeys. Learn more about orchestration activities.
Actions jo-actions
Actions define what happens as a result of journey triggers, such as sending an email, SMS, or push notification. These touchpoints are what the customer experiences.
Use channel action activities to include messages crafted in Journey Optimizer. For example, send an email tailored to a customer鈥檚 preferences. Learn more about channel action activities.
Custom actions trigger third-party integrations, such as sending a Slack notification or updating a CRM record. Learn more about custom actions.
Add alternative paths paths
Define fallback actions for cases where an activity encounters an error or timeout. This ensures continuity and prevents profiles from getting stuck.
To add a fallback action, check the Add an alternative path in case of a timeout or an error box in the activity properties. A secondary path appears after the activity. Admin users control timeout duration in journey properties. For example, if an email fails to send, you can send a push notification instead.
Certain activities, like events and waits, allow multiple paths. Set parallel paths by clicking the 鈥+鈥 symbol on the activity. When multiple events occur simultaneously, the journey proceeds along the path of the first event received.
Avoid indefinite waits when listening for events. Instead, set a time limit using a wait activity in parallel with the event. This keeps the journey efficient and prevents delays. Learn more.
To delete a path, hover over it and click the Delete path icon.
If activities are disconnected in the canvas, a warning icon appears. Hover over the icon to see the error message and reconnect the activity to resolve the issue.
Copy and paste activities copy-paste
Copy one or more activities within a journey and paste them into the same journey or another one. This is useful for reusing preconfigured activities in new workflows.
Important Notes
- Copy/paste works across tabs and browsers but is limited to the same instance.
- Events cannot be copied if the destination journey uses a different namespace.
- Pasted activities may reference data unavailable in the destination journey, such as sandbox-specific configurations. Check for errors and adjust as needed.
- Actions cannot be undone. To remove pasted activities, delete them manually. Select only relevant activities before copying.
- Activities from read-only journeys can be copied.
- Linked activities remain linked when pasted.
Steps to copy/paste activities:
- Open a journey.
- Select the activities to copy by dragging your mouse while clicking or pressing Ctrl/Command and clicking individual activities. Use Ctrl/Command + A to select all activities.
- Press Ctrl/Command + C. To copy a single activity, click it and use the Copy icon in the top left of the activity configuration pane.
- Open any journey and press Ctrl/Command + V to paste the activities. Pasted activities remain unlinked unless placed on an empty node. They retain their original order and stay selected for easy movement. Alternatively, paste them onto an empty placeholder to link them automatically.
