Creating a Journey Map

Xponent's Customer Journey Map allows the user to visually represent the customer experience and map journey steps and activities to the underlying graphs that execute and support the customer journey.

The Journey Map allows the use of pre-defined Journey Steps and other activities, ensuring that key business points of interest are reflected in both the Journey Map and graph. Each Journey Map can also be saved as a template to be re-used within any project in the organization, allowing you to save time and gain efficiency.

Creating a Journey Map

To create a customer journey for your project, click on the Create Journey Map button on the Journeys tab of the project page.

This brings you to the Add New Journey dialog for this project. To create a new journey, you need to project a Name and Description and then press the Create Journey button at the bottom of the screen.

The Journey Map

Once the Customer Journey has been created, you will see the Journey Map interface that allows the creation of customer journeys in a free-form manner. You will also see two journey steps automatically included with the names "<your journey name> Start" and "<your journey name> Completion".

The journey steps are added to help users understand where the start of a journey and the end of a journey would be considered. You will also be able to add these two journey steps in a graph as well to allow you to start tracking the success (start and stop) of your journey. The Journey Map also allows metrics to be created and associated with journey nodes and for journey nodes to be associated with graphs. 

The Journey Map has the following panels: 

• The canvas shown on the left-hand side of the window
• The right-hand column in Steps & Metrics and Style mode is controlled by the toggle switch at the top right of the window 
• In Steps & Metrics, the right-hand panels are from top to bottom: 
  • The list of Journey Steps 
  • Metrics (if created) 
    • Environments - toggling by the environment will filter out the metrics and steps in the selected environment
• In Style mode, the right-hand panels are from top to bottom: 
  • Add node
  • Various styles that can be used for a node or step

The Journey Map also enables you to generate images or 'screenshots' of your journey as either a .PNG or a .PDF. Just click on the Generate Image link, and you will be presented with the following options:

When you're ready to generate the image, just click on the appropriate button, and an image will be generated for you. You should be able to find this image in the Downloads section of your OS or web browser.

Drawing and Annotating Journeys

New Journey Nodes can be added to the map by dragging out a new icon from any node on the map on the grab arrow that appears on the node. 

or by right-clicking on the Journey Map canvas and selecting 'Add Node.'

Nodes are deleted from the map by right-clicking on the node and selecting 'Delete Node'.

The icon itself, the background color, and the foreground color can be changed for any icon either by:

• Clicking on the icon and then using the Customize Journey Step panel on the right-hand side of the window or
• Right-clicking on an icon on the canvas and choosing 'Apply New Style to Node'.

The Customize Journey Node panel allows control over the foreground and background colors as well as the icon type itself: 

The Customer Journey can be created using any combination of icons and foreground and background colors:  

Each Journey Node has a Name and a Description, which are edited by clicking on the node and changing the values in the right-hand Edit Node panel. The Save Changes to button should be clicked before deselecting the journey node.

The links between steps can also be annotated by clicking on the link and using the right-hand panel to change the link name and description. Separately, the link background color and text color can be changed to fit any desired color scheme. Once a color has been chosen from the color picker, the hexadecimal code for that color can be copied and pasted to other links. 

Adding Journey Steps to a Journey Map

You can also associate your pre-defined journey steps with the journey map. Right-click on the map itself to add the journey step, or you can also add a journey step by double-clicking on the Journey Step icon in the right-hand panel. 

Once you have added your journey step into the journey map, you can then customize it with any of the pre-defined icons provided by Xponent or add in your own from the right-hand panel. 

Journey steps, when created, are stand-alone and should be added to relevant graphs and journey maps to record the steps. 

Converting an Existing Journey Node to a Journey Step

To convert an existing journey node within your journey map to a Journey Step, simply select the journey node you want to convert and right-click.

• Click on the Convert to Journey Step, and the existing journey node will then pull up a dialogue box where you can confirm the name of the journey step, outcome, outcome label, and description.

• Once confirmed, click on the Convert Journey Step button, and the existing journey node will be converted into a journey step.

This new journey step will also automatically appear in your journey step list.

Journey Options

While there are many more features in the Journey Map to explore, this section highlights some additional features you should consider using. The Journey Options dropdown, located at the top-left corner of the graph. 

Name	Function
Show / Hide sidebar	Hides the most right bar so the Journey Map view will show just the metrics and the steps
Show / Hide step names	Shows the names of each of the steps used in the Journey Map view
Show / Hide pinned metrics	Displays the graphs of all metrics that have been associated with the steps in the Journey Map. The standard metric display will look like the one below, where you have the option to select which environment's metrics you want in the dropdown, the option to minimize and maximize the metric graphs, and the time interval axis of the graph.

Deleting a Journey Map

You can delete a journey map just by selecting the journey map and clicking on the trash icon. 

Deleting a journey map will simply remove the journey map from your project and cannot be restored. However, suppose you decide to create a new journey map under the same name at a later date.

In that case, the system will just automatically restore the previously deleted start/end journey steps and its associated metric count from the earlier deleted journey map. This is because the system considers journey steps a soft delete. So, it is recommended to try and use a new name for the new journey map to avoid confusion in the outcome metric count. 

If your journey map includes journey steps that have been associated with graphs and you decide to delete the said journey map, the associated Journey Start and Journey End steps used in graphs could then cause errors in execution. So, before deleting, please ensure that the associated Journey Start & Journey End steps are not used in any graphs, or those steps can be replaced with either another node or another journey step.

Journey Map Collaboration

The Journey Map and the Graph Editor are collaborative tools. Only one person at a time can be editing the journey map, but multiple people can view the journey map. If another user is editing the journey map, then the screen will be "gray," and a "Currently Being Edited By" message will be shown at the bottom right of the screen. Also, you can watch other people modify the journey while it is locked.

You can watch other people modify the journey while it is locked.

To take the lock, press the Release Lock button. This will allow you to edit the journey. If two people release the lock simultaneously, the next person to edit the journey will be the person who captures the lock.