All You Need to Know About Flows

You build your Flows by entering the Flows module. Click on the icon in the top left corner and then select 'New Flow'. You now have your very first Step which you can alter and add as many Steps as you want to. 

When configuring your Flow, you will see a series of panels to the right that control different settings. These settings allow you to control how and when a Flow should execute. 

The Flow Settings, with the Schedule settings panel expanded

Target Group Panel

Schedule Panel

Adding a schedule to a Flow means you can set whether you want to repeat or not. There are a number of available scheduling options. 

One time - An execution in the future. 

By the minute - Every x minutes between hh-hh. There's also the option to run only on weekdays.

By the hours - Every x hours between hh-hh. There's also the option to run only on weekdays.

Daily - Every x days at hh-mm.

Weekly - Repeat every x weeks on x days, starting at hh:mm.

Monthly - Repeat every x months starting at DD hh:mm. Or, you can repeat it every x months on the first, second, third, fourth, or last DD hh:ss.

Yearly - Repeat every year on MM-DD hh:ss. Or, you can repeat every year on the first, second, third, fourth, or last DD hh:ss.

You don't need to add a schedule to a Flow if you're using a Trigger, such as an Event taking place. 

It's important to test and verify your Flows if you schedule them. This is because another Agillic User may Publish the Flow to Production whilst you're working on it. If this happens, the Flow will execute.

Send to recipients based on their time zone checkbox - Allows the Flow to execute at different times based on the recipient's time zones. You must enable this feature in the Settings module to use it. 

Only execute on Production checkbox - Ensures that a scheduled execution won't also execute on Staging. 

Triggers Panel

This is where you can set Triggers on your Flows, meaning that specific Events trigger a Flow to execute. For example, you might set a Trigger so that when a recipient makes their first purchase, changing their purchases counter to 1, an email is triggered. Select the plus icon to add a trigger to a Flow. 

Note that a 'triggered' execution is an alternative to executing for a Target Group. It is rarely a good idea to implement both on the same flow. A recipient entering the flow based on a 'trigger', will not be checked against a Target Group attached to the root step of Flow.

Settings Panel

This is where the additional settings for the Flows can be altered. 

Allowed entry dates:
Date picker allows you to limit the time in which the Flow can execute. This feature is most commonly used for batched execution when you're sending a large number of communications at the same time.

Max recipients per execution:
Specify the maximum allowed number of recipients in a single execution. When it reads 0, that means the execution can have an infinite number of recipients per execution. If this is set, you can choose in what order recipients enter the Step in the 'Ordered by' dropdown menu. Again, this is normally used for batch executions.

We advise you to take advantage of the 'Ordered by' feature or the 'Max repetitions per recipient' to avoid recipients being included in a batch more than once. That is to say, if 'Ordered by' is left unconfigured, a random selection will occur for each batch. Therefore, a recipient can be randomly selected for a batch more than once.

Max repetitions per recipient:
Specify the maximum number of times a recipient can enter a Flow. When it reads 0, that means they can enter an unrestricted number of times.

Exit after:
Helps avoid recipients from getting stuck within a Flow by setting a time frame of how long a recipient can stay in the Flow. They might get stuck if, for example, a Waiting for Activity Step is used.

Execution priority:
Allows you to adjust the priority of flows. 

Every flow created in Agillic will by default have the execution priority set to 'normal'. You as a configurator then have the option to adjust the priority of the flow(s).

Generally this execution priority should be raised in two scenarios:

Scheduled
A situation where the content itself is very time sensitive, and needs to prioritised over all other scheduled outbound communication.

• If Flow A (normal priority) and Flow B (very urgent) are scheduled to send at 12:00, Flow B will be completed first.

Triggered
A Point of Sale situation (triggered flow), where immediate content delivery is required.

• • Event A  is configured to trigger Flow C (normal priority). The recipient triggers Event A, which can take up to a few seconds to execute the flow for this recipient.
  • Event B  is configured to trigger Flow D (urgent/very urgent priority). The recipient triggers Event B which, due to the priority setting, will be executed nearly instantly.

Utilise this setting wisely, as it to prioritise the important flows, as marking large quantities as 'urgent/very urgent' will a diminishing prioritisation effect.

Please note that Subject Line Tests and Export Flows behave slightly differently due to their nature, and in general do not required Execution Priority.

Continuous Target Group evaluation checkbox:
If checked, recipients are re-evaluated when they reach each Step. This means that if a recipient is no longer a member of a Target Group when they enter a new Step, they will be kicked out of the Flow. 

How Do You Test a Flow?

There are several ways that you can test a Flow to make sure that it works properly.

Test via Manual Execution

The most common way of testing a Flow is to apply a Target Group consisting of only your own test recipients and then manually executing the Flow on Staging. This way, it won't be sent out to any real recipients.

Test via Redirect

If you wish to test the Flow with multiple test recipients at the same time, we recommend that you use the redirect function. This allows you to redirect all the Emails or SMS from the Flow to a single inbox or phone, no matter what contact information the test recipient may have.

Test via Flow Investigator

An alternative way to execute the Flow for a single recipient is by using the 'Flow Investigator' tool. This way, you also have the added benefit of skipping any waiting Steps in the Flow. This allows you to quickly test the Flow without waiting the same amount of time as the recipient would.

Predicting a Flow

Predicting a Flow allows you to see how many recipients will be affected by the settings of a Flow if it was executed immediately. The prediction will evaluate both the Target Group and any extra settings of the Steps. For example, it checks if a recipient can receive an email in an email Step.

If there is a max number of recipients set per execution with no sorting, the prediction may not be accurate. Instead, it will take a random group of recipients from the Target Group when predicting.

The predictions are sample-based. This means we automatically divide the calculations of larger Target Groups into multiple, smaller calculations. This gives you much faster initial predictions as there’s no need to wait for all recipients to be counted before you see the numbers in the interface. So, if you’re working with large and complex Target Groups, this one will definitely come in handy!

How to Make a Prediction

1. Log into the Staging environment
2. Open the Flows module
3. Navigate to your Flow in the folder navigator
4. Double click to open your Flow in the work area
5. Click the Prediction icon in the Flow toolbar which resembles a crystal ball
6. Select which environment you want to predict for from the menu

Your Flow has now been predicted and is ready for you to verify the numbers. The numbers will appear for each Step in the Flow.

If you have more than 250,000 recipients, you'll need to hover over the Steps to see the progression of the prediction.

A predicted Flow with 8 recipients in the Target Group and 4 recipients going through the second branch of the split-step

How to Read the Prediction

The Prediction will generally display three different counts for a Flow. These represent different information about your Flow.

Recipients Who Can Complete the Flow

This figure is shown as the number 12 outside the parentheses in the image above. This indicates that out of the total target group size of 15, 12 recipients will enter the Flow when initiated.