Workflows Overview

Workflows are custom, multi-step processes that send users personalized messages based on their interactions with your brand.

Once triggered, workflows can analyze user behavior, apply filters and delays, split users into different groups, update user profiles, change subscription preferences, call webhooks, trigger other workflows, and more. Workflows are a great way to build multi-step welcome or cart abandonment campaigns.

This document describes how to create a basic workflow and gives a high-level overview of the various pieces of a workflow.

# Table of contents

# Managing workflows

To manage your project's workflows, navigate to Messaging > Workflows.

This screen lists all the workflows in the current project.

# Viewing the campaigns associated with a particular workflow

There are two ways to view the campaigns associated with a particular workflow:

• Twirl open the workflow's Campaigns indicator. Clicking a campaign will open it in context of the workflow send node that uses it.
• Alternatively, hover over the workflow and click the View Campaigns within Workflow link that appears. This brings up the list of the workflow's campaigns in an interface that shows details such as unique clicks, unique opens, etc.

# Creating workflows

The following sections describe how to create a simple workflow.

# Instructions

To create a simple workflow, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Messaging > Workflows.

2. Click Create a New Workflow.

3. Configure the workflow's green Start When trigger node by double-clicking it and adjusting its settings as necessary. When you're done editing it, click its Update Node button.

   

4. Drag a send node (Send Email, Send In-App, Send Push, Send SMS, or Send Web Push) onto the workflow canvas.

   

5. Connect the trigger node to the send node by dragging an arrow between their connection points.

   

6. Edit the send node by double-clicking it:

   

   • Specify a Campaign Name, a Custom Conversion Metric, and Labels (as necessary).

   • Select a template to use as a starting point for the campaign's content. Note that you can't create a new template while editing a workflow send node.

     TIP

     To edit an existing template before selecting it:

     • Right-click the name of a template and open it in a new browser tab.
     • Edit the template as necessary.
     • Click Save Template.
     • Back in the original browser tab, close the workflow node.
     • Double-click the Send node to re-open it.
     • Select the edited template.

7. At this point, Iterable must generate the campaign associated with the new send node. To make this happen, save the send node by clicking Update Node and save the workflow by clicking Save (in the upper-right corner).

8. Open the send node again to configure its campaign:

   

   Edit the template to specify the content for your campaign, and save it by clicking Save Template. Then save the node by clicking Update Node.

9. Save the workflow by clicking Save (in the upper-right corner of the workflow).

10. Enable the workflow with the toggle in the upper-left.

11. The workflow is now active. After some time passes, use the send node's Campaign Analytics tab to check on its performance. For more details, read Workflow Analytics.

# Types of workflow nodes

A workflow can contain various kinds of nodes:

• Trigger nodes, which kick off a workflow. These nodes are colored green and found at the top of a workflow. There are various kinds of trigger nodes, such as API triggers, custom event triggers, and many more. For details, read Workflow Triggers.
• Action nodes, which let you do things to users in a workflow: send them messages, modify list membership, update their user profiles, and more. For more details, read Workflow Actions.
• Filter nodes, which help determine which users move to which steps in the workflow. For more details, read Workflow Filters.

# Cloning workflow nodes

To create a copy of an existing workflow node, select it and then click Clone Selected in the top-right action bar.

To clone multiple nodes and their connections, toggle Select On and then click and drag over the nodes that you would like to clone. Then click Clone Selected (as shown below). Hold down the <shift> key to select multiple nodes and connections.

# Limiting workflow entrances

When editing a workflow, the Advanced Options button in the upper-right corner brings up a window with two options:

• Limit simultaneous entrances per user

  This option prevents users from entering the same workflow multiple times simultaneously. This can useful for shopping cart abandonment workflows, since you do not want to send an email to a user for every item they leave behind in their carts.

  Generally, you will want to turn this option on for marketing workflows and leave it off for transactional workflows (such as a password reset).

• Limit lifetime entrances per user

  This option prevents users from entering a workflow multiple times, ever. This can useful for welcome series and other workflows that a user should only ever pass through once.

# Changing a workflow campaign's template

To edit or switch a workflow campaign's template, double-click the send node associated with the campaign. Then, click Back to Select Template.

When you change the template, the campaign name will remain the same.

# Enabling a workflow

To enable your workflow, switch the toggle in the top-left from Disabled to Enabled.

# Testing workflows

To learn about testing and troubleshooting workflows, read:

• Testing a Workflow
• Troubleshooting Workflows

# Workflow analytics

There are various types of metrics associated with workflows: basic workflow metrics, workflow analytics, and workflow campaign metrics. To learn more about these metrics, read Workflow Analytics.