Creating a Journey Step

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A Journey Step represents a moment of interest to a business within a consumer journey.

For Example:

Some journey steps are made up of simple interactions or number of interactions:

• Simple Interactions:  Downloading a white paper or completing a form submission.

• It may involve a number of interactions over a longer period of time: Deciding that a customer is fully onboarded because they have used all of the relevant services on their new product.

When you consider creating journey steps, you should include only concrete, stable, and well-defined events.

In creating your journey steps, you can also define whether the journey step in question is a positive, neutral, or negative result.

For Example:

If a journey step is "leaves website," then the outcome would most likely be tracked as "negative" in Outcome.

You are encouraged to create journey steps first prior to creating a journey map so you can understand how to tie in key business points of interest in the journey map. A journey step, once created, can be associated with multiple graphs and journey maps.

Creating and Adding a Journey Step

To add a journey step click on the Create Journey Step button in the Journeys tab of your project.

The Create Journey Step dialogue box will be displayed.

To create a new journey step, please enter the following details:

• Name: Enter the journey step name.

• Outcome: Select the outcome from the dropdown (Positive, Neutral, or Negative) to define the outcome label.

• Outcome Label: Enter the label for the selected outcome. The Outcome Label is used within the Journey Discovery Analytics Dashboard.

• Description: Enter a brief journey description here.

Manage Context

Context fields capture relevant data needed to support a Journey Step in real-time. The Manage Context allows users to define custom context fields that store additional data for Journey Steps in Xponent. These fields can be used in orchestration logic, enabling better data integration and usage across projects, enabling you to customize data used in various logic nodes. It includes common use cases like tracking campaigns, associating journey steps with specific journeys, and capturing additional details.

For Example: Location details for "Visit to Center".

A context field provides structured data that can be referenced across Journey Steps within a project. Context fields are now integrated directly into orchestration, allowing them to be accessed and validated dynamically as graphs execute.

1. Define Context Field: Context fields are maintained at the project level, while visibility preferences are unique to each Journey Step.

• Context Name: Enter a unique name for the context field.

• Select Type: Choose a data type from the dropdown (e.g., Number, Text). Note that only the name can be edited later, not the type.

  These data types help define the structure and content of context fields, ensuring the data is organized for logic and validation within journey steps.

  • Boolean: A true or false value.

    Example: true (indicating a condition is met)

  • List of Boolean: A list containing multiple true or false values.

    Example: [true, false, true] (representing multiple conditions)

  • List of Numbers: A list of numeric values.

    Example: [10, 20, 30] (representing scores or quantities)

  • List of Text: A list of text strings.

    Example: ["apple", "banana", "cherry"] (representing items or names)

  • Number: A single numeric value.

    Example: 42 (representing age, quantity, etc.)

  • Object: Structured data with key-value pairs, similar to JSON format.

    Example: { "firstName": "John", "age": 30 } (representing user data)

  • Text: A single line of text.

    Example: "New York" (representing a city name, title, full sentence)

  Once a name and type are specified, the Add Context Type button will enable, allowing you to save the context field.

2. Visibility Control:

   • Toggle the visibility icon to control the visibility of a context in the Journey Step.
     

   • Setting a context field to "visible" makes it accessible for assigning values within the same Journey Step.

     Newly created context are visible by default only in the journey step where they were created. Visibility for other steps is turned off by default, but you can enable it if needed.

   • Setting a context to "visible" associates it with the journey step, allowing values to be assigned from the schema to this field.

   • Turning visibility off removes the field’s association from the journey step and deletes any assigned values in nodes referencing this step

3. Editing the context:

   • You can change the name of an existing context field by clicking the edit (✏️) icon, but data types cannot be modified once set.

   • After editing to confirm the changes click Edit Context. The system will notify you: "Contexts are used globally throughout your project. Changes made here will be reflected everywhere this context is referenced.". The changes to contexts or visibility preferences will only take effect in deployed graphs upon re-deployment.

     

4. Deleting the context:

   • To remove a context, click on the delete (🗑️) icon. This will delete the context across all journey steps and graphs where it’s referenced.

   • The pop-up will notify you about the global impact: "Deleting this context field will remove it from all journey steps and graphs where it is used.

   • To confirm the deletion, enter the same context name and click Delete Context. The changes to contexts or visibility preferences will only take effect in deployed graphs upon re-deployment.
     

Context fields are globally accessible within your project. Any changes to these fields impact all Journey Steps and nodes where they are referenced.

Adjusting visibility or modifying context field settings allows for consistent data management and simplifies orchestration logic.

• Click Create Journey Step to initiate a new Journey Step

Once you have created your journey steps, now it can be used within journey maps and graphs.

Adding Journey Step Node to Graph

To use a journey step in a graph:

• Select the required graph you want to view.

• Right-click inside the graph and select Add Journey Step.

Adding a Journey Step to a graph will create an association which is shown on the Journeys tab for that Journey Step.

Now, you can see the list of journey steps you have already created.

• Select the required Journey Step that you want to add to the graph and click Add Journey Step.

The journey step shown in the graph will be visually represented differently from other nodes. This node allows you to easily identify where the journey step is located and what it is connected to.

Contexts with visibility turned on for this journey step will be displayed here.

For Example:

These are the contexts that have visibility enabled for this journey step, so these parameters will be available in the graph to define values.

• campaign-id

• journey-identifier

• location

(Optional) These context fields needs to define values such as schema or literal values.

Using Journey Steps in a Journey Map

While editing a Journey Map, the right-hand column has two tabs, "Steps & Metrics" and "Style". The journey steps you have created will show up under the "Steps & Metrics" tab.

• Double-click on one of the required journey steps to add it to the journey map view.

You will also be able to add a new journey step to the map directly.

• Right-click and select Create a Journey Step.

• Provide all the details and click Create Journey Step to save it. The configured journey step will now available in the Steps & Metrics tab.

Customizing the Journey Step Icons

The newly created journey step has a gray shade with the pencil icon. You can customize the journey steps in the journey map via the right-hand side (Style) panel.

Once you have customized the journey step, the updated icon will also be reflected in the list of Journey Steps.

Managing the Journey Steps

Journey Steps can be managed in a dedicated section under the Journey tab.

• Click on the Journey tab in the navigation bar and select the Journey you want to view.

Once you have selected the journey, the associated journey steps will be listed below. Now you can create new journey steps and edit or delete a journey step. You can also view and associate a graph to a particular journey step in this view.

The full list of journey steps shows the Name of the journey step, Outcome (positive, neutral, or negative) & Metric, Parameters, Description, and the Associated Graphs. The outcome metric is a unique count of the profiles for that particular step.

Edit Journey Step

To edit a journey step, click on the pencil icon to edit the following information:

• Journey Step Name

• Outcome Type

• Outcome Label

• Description

• Context Name and Type

Note that editing a journey step will not alter the outcome metric

Make sure that the information you are editing will still match the outcome metric that has already been associated. You can associate a metric with a journey step in the same way as before.

• Right-click on the journey step and select Create and Associate Metric or Associate Metric.

Delete Journey Step

• To delete a journey step, click on the trash can icon.

If the Journey Step is associated with one or more graphs, you will be presented with a warning.

Once the journey step is deleted from the Journey tab view:

• It becomes a ghost node in the associated graph.

• It makes the journey step in the associated journey map into a regular journey node. You will need to re-associate and/or add the journey step to the graphs and journey map.

Associating Graphs to a Journey Step

To help the business understand whether a journey step is functioning as designed, you can now associate relevant graphs to a particular journey step.

To associate a graph with the journey step, click on the Add Graph button to add the graphs you want associated with the selected journey step, and you will be redirected to the Graphs tab.

• Double-click on the required graph to open it.

• Right-click on the graph and select Add Journey Step.

A dialogue box will appear with the list of journey steps. Also, you can select the journey step you want to add to this graph. You must do this in order for the journey step to be associated with the graph. You can associate as many graphs as necessary.