Build a workflow

Last update: May 16, 2024

CREATED FOR:

  • User

Create a new workflow

Workflow creation flow depends on the type of workflows. You can:

  • Create Targeting workflows from the Profiles and Targets > Jobs > Targeting workflows node of the Explorer or from the Profiles and Targets tab of the home page, via the Targeting workflows sub-tab.

  • Create Campaign workflows from the Targeting and workflows tab of a campaign

  • Create Technical workflows from the Administration > Production > Technical workflows node of the Explorer. Best practice is to create a specific workflow folder to save your technical workflows.

Click the New button located above the list of workflows.

Enter a label and click Save.

You must now define the various activities and link them together in the diagram. At this stage of the configuration, we can see the diagram label and the workflow status (Editing in progress). The lower section of the window is used for editing the diagram only. It contains a toolbar, a palette of activities (on the left) and the diagram itself (on the right).

NOTE
If the palette is not shown, click the first button on the workflow toolbar to display it.

Activities are grouped by category in the different tabs of the palette. Available tabs and activities can vary depending on the workflow type (technical, targeting or campaign workflow).

  • The first tab contains targeting and data manipulation activities. These activities are detailed in Targeting activities.
  • The second tab contains the scheduling activities, which are mainly used for coordinating other activities. These activities are detailed in Flow control activities.
  • The third tab contains tools and actions that can be used in the workflow. These activities are detailed in Action activities.
  • The fourth tab contains activities that depend on a given event, such as the receipt of an email or the arrival of a file on a server. These activities are detailed in Event activities.

To create the diagram

  1. Add an activity by selecting it in the palette and by moving it to the diagram using a drag-and-drop operation.

    Add a Start activity and then a Delivery activity on the diagram.

  2. Link the activities together by dragging the Start activity transition and dropping it on to the Delivery activity.

    You can automatically link an activity to the previous one by placing the new activity at the end of the transition.

  3. Add the activities you need and link them together as shown in the diagram below.

CAUTION
You can copy and paste activities within a same workflow. However, we do not recommend to copy paste activities across different workflows. Some settings attached to activities like Deliveries and Scheduler could lead to conflicts and errors while executing the destination workflow. Instead, we recommended you to Duplicate workflows. For more information, see Duplicate workflows.

You can change the display and layout of the chart using the following elements:

  • Use the toolbar

    The diagram editing toolbar gives you access to the layout and execution functions of the workflow.

    This lets you adapt the layout of the editing tool: display of the palette and the overview, size and alignment of graphical objects.

    Icons related to progress and logs display are detailed in these sections:

  • Object alignment

    To align icons, select them and click the Align vertically or Align horizontally icon.

    Use the CTRL key to select several scattered activities or to deselect one or more activities. Click on the diagram background to deselect everything.

  • Image management

    You can customize the background image of the diagram as well as those related to the various activities. Refer to Change activity images.

Configure activities

Double-click an activity to configure it or right-click and select Open….

NOTE
Campaign workflow activities are detailed in this section.

The first tab contains the basic configuration. The Advanced tab contains the additional parameters, which are used particularly for defining behavior when an error is encountered, specifying the execution duration for an activity, and for entering an initialization script.

For a better understanding of the activities and to improve workflow legibility, you can enter comments in the activities.

These comments are displayed automatically when operators scroll over the activity.

Workflow templates

Workflow templates contain the overall configuration of properties and possibly a range of activities concatenated within a diagram. This configuration can be reused for creating new workflows containing a certain number of pre-configured elements

You can create new workflow templates based on existing templates or change a workflow into a template directly.

Workflow templates are stored in the Resources > Templates > Workflow templates node of the Explorer.

In addition to the usual workflow properties, the template properties allow you to specify the execution file for workflows created based on this template.

Duplicate workflows

You can duplicate different types of workflows. Once duplicated, modifications of the workflow are not carried over to the copy of the workflow.

Adobe recommends to duplicate a workflow rather than performing a copy/paste of activities. When an activity is copied, all its settings is kept. For channel activities, the delivery object associated to the activity is also copied, which can lead to major issues.

  1. Right-click on a workflow.

  2. Click Duplicate.

  3. In the workflow window, change the workflow label.

  4. Click Save.

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