Set up channel surfaces

With Journey Optimizer, you can set up channel surfaces (i.e. message presets) that define all the technical parameters required for your messages: email type, sender email and name, mobile apps, SMS configuration, and more.

Once channel surfaces have been configured, you will be able to select them when creating messages from a journey or a campaign.

Create a channel surface

To create a channel surface, follow these steps:

1. Access the Channels > Branding > Channel surfaces menu, then click Create channel surface.

   

2. Enter a name and a description (optional) for the surface, then select the channel(s) to configure.

   

   NOTE

   Names must begin with a letter (A-Z). It can only contain alpha-numeric characters. You can also use underscore _, dot. and hyphen - characters.

3. If you selected the Email channel, configure your settings as described in this section.

   

4. For the Push Notification channel, select at least one platform - iOS and/or Android -, and the mobile applications to use for each platform.

   

   NOTE

   For more on how to configure your environment to send push notifications, refer to this section.

5. For the SMS channel, define your settings as detailed in this section.

   

   NOTE

   For more on how to configure your environment to send SMS messages, refer to this section.

6. Once all the parameters have been configured, click Submit to confirm. You can also save the channel surface as draft and resume its configuration later on.

   

   NOTE

   You cannot proceed with surface creation while the selected IP pool is under edition (Processing status), and has never been associated with the selected subdomain. Learn more

   Save the surface as draft and wait until the IP pool has the Success status to resume surface creation.

7. Once the channel surface has been created, it displays in the list with the Processing status.

   During this step, several checks will be performed to verify that it has been configured properly.

   NOTE

   When creating an email surface for a subdomain, the processing time varies as detailed below:

   • For new subdomains, the process for creating the first channel surface can take 10 min to 10 days.
   • For non production sandboxes, or if the selected subdomain is already used in another approved channel surface, the process takes only up to 3 hours.

   These checks include configuration and technical tests that are performed by the Adobe team:

   • SPF validation
   • DKIM validation
   • MX record validation
   • Check IPs denylisting
   • Helo host check
   • IP pool verification
   • A/PTR record, t/m/res subdomain verification
   • FBL registration (this check will be performed only the first time an email surface is created for a given subdomain)
   NOTE

   If the checks are not successful, learn more on the possible failure reasons in this section.

8. Once the checks are successful, the channel surface gets the Active status. It is ready to be used to deliver messages.

   

Monitor channel surfaces

All your channel surfaces display in the Channels > Channel surfaces menu. Filters are available to help you browse through the list (channel, user, status).

Once created, channel surfaces can have the following statuses:

• Draft: The channel surface has been saved as a draft and has not been submitted yet. Open it to resume the configuration.
• Processing: The channel surface has been submitted and is going through several verifications steps.
• Active: The channel surface has been verified and can be selected to create messages.
• Failed: One or several checks have failed during the channel surface verification.
• Deactivated: The channel surface is deactivated. It cannot be used to create new messages.

In case a channel surface creation fails, the details on each possible failure reason are described below.

If one of these errors occurs, contact Adobe Customer Care to get assistance.

• SPF validation failed: SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is an email authentication protocol that allows to specify authorized IPs that can send emails from a given subdomain. SPF validation failure means that the IP addresses in the SPF record do not match the IP addresses used for sending emails to the mailbox providers.

• DKIM validation failed: DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) allows the recipient server to verify that the received message was sent by the genuine sender of the associated domain and that the content of the original message was not altered on its way. DKIM validation failure means that the receiving mail servers are unable to verify the authenticity of the message content and its association with the sending domain.:

• MX record validation failed: MX (Mail eXchange) record validation failure means that the mail servers responsible for accepting inbound emails on behalf of a given subdomain are not correctly configured.

• Deliverability configurations failed: Deliverability configurations failure can happen due to any of the following reasons:

  • Blocklisting of the allocated IPs
  • Invalid helo name
  • Emails being sent from IPs other than the ones specified in the IP pool of the corresponding surface
  • Unable to deliver emails to inboxes of major ISPs

Edit a channel surface

To edit a channel surface, follow the steps below.

1. From the list, click a channel surface name to open it.

   

2. Edit its properties as desired.

   NOTE

   If a channel surface has the Active status, the Name, Select channel and Subdomain fields are greyed out and cannot be edited.

3. Click Submit to confirm your changes.

   NOTE

   You can also save the channel surface as draft and resume update later on.

Once the changes are submitted, the channel surface will go through a validation cycle similar to the one in place when creating a channel surface. The edition processing time can take up to 3 hours.

Update details

For channel surfaces that have the Active status, you can check the details of the update. To do so:

Click the Recent update icon that is displayed next to the active surface name.

On the Recent update screen, you can see information such as the update status, and the list of requested changes.

Update statuses

A channel surface update can have the following statuses:

• Processing: The channel surface update has been submitted and is going through several verifications steps.
• Success: The updated channel surface has been verified and can be selected to create messages.
• Failed: One or several checks have failed during the channel surface update verification.

Each status is detailed below.

Processing

Several deliverability checks will be performed to verify that the surface has been updated properly.

The processing time can take up to 3 hours. Learn more on the checks performed during the validation cycle in this section.

If you edit a surface that was already active:

• Its status remains Active while the validation process is in progress.

• The Recent update icon displays next to the name of the surface in the channel surfaces list.

• During the validation process, the messages configured using this surface are still using the older version of the surface.

Success

Once the validation process is successful, the new version of the surface is automatically used in all messages using this surface. However, you may have to wait:

• a few minutes before it is consumed by the unitary messages,
• until the next batch for the surface to be effective in batch messages.

Failed

If the validation process fails, the older version of the surface will still be used.

Learn more on the possible failure reasons in this section.

Upon update failing, the surface becomes editable again. You can click its name and update the settings that need to be fixed.

Deactivate a channel surface

To make an Active channel surface unavailable to create new messages, you can deactivate it. However, journeys’ messages currently using this surface will not be affected and will continue working.

1. Access the channel surfaces list.

2. For the active surface of your choice, click the More actions button.

3. Select Deactivate.

   

You cannot directly edit a deactivated channel surface. However, you can duplicate it and edit the copy to create a new version that you will use to create new messages. You can also activate it again, and wait until the update is successful to edit it.