On this page: Learn how to use the journey designer canvas and palette to drag and drop events, orchestration, and action activities into a sequenced flow that builds your journey.
Adobe Journey Optimizer includes an omnichannel orchestration canvas which allows marketers to harmonize marketing outreach with one-to-one customer engagement. The user interface allows you to easily drag and drop activities from the palette into the canvas to build your journey. Note that you can also double-click on an activity to add it in the canvas, at the next available step.
Events, orchestration and action activities have a specific role and place in the process. The activities are sequenced: when an activity is finished, the flow continues and processes the next activity, and so on.
Get started with journey design gs-journey-design
The palette is on the left-hand side of the screen. All available activities are sorted into several categories: Events, Orchestration and Actions. You can expand/collapse the different categories by clicking on their name. To use an activity in your journey, drag and drop it from the palette into your canvas.
When starting a new journey, elements that cannot be dropped in the canvas as the first step are hidden. This concerns all actions, the condition activity, the wait and the reaction.
The Filter items icon in the top left corner allows you to display the following filters:
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Show only available items: hide or display unavailable elements in the palette, for example the events that use a different namespace than the ones used in your journey. By default, unavailable items are hidden. If you choose to display them, they will appear greyed out.
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Show only recent items: this filter allows you to only display the last five events and actions used, in addition to out-of-the-box ones. This is specific to each user. By default, all items are displayed.
You can also use the Search field. Only events and actions are filtered.
The canvas is the central zone in the journey designer. It is in this zone that you can drop your activities and configure them. Click on an activity in the canvas to configure it. This opens the activity configuration pane on the right-hand side.
The toolbar, located in the top right corner of the canvas, allows you to show/hide the grid, zoom in/out and download a screenshot of the canvas. See this section.
The activity configuration pane appears when you click on an activity in the palette. Fill in the required fields. Click the Delete icon to delete the activity. Click Cancel to cancel the modifications or Ok to confirm. To delete activities, you can also select one activity (or several) and press the backspace key. Pressing the escape key will close the activity configuration pane.
By default, read-only fields are hidden. To show read-only fields, click the Show read-only fields icon at the top left of the activity configuration pane. This setting applies to all activities in all journeys.
Depending on the journey’s status, you can perform different actions on your journey using the buttons available in the top right corner: Publish, Duplicate, Delete, Test mode, Manage access, Alerts. These buttons appear when no activity is selected. Some buttons will appear contextually. The test mode log button appears when test mode is activated.
For a Draft journey, the Validate button in the journey header runs configuration checks before testing, simulation, a dry run, publication, or an approval request. It replaces Publish until the journey has a current, passed validation. Review errors and warnings in the Alerts panel, resolve any errors, and validate again before continuing. Learn about journey validation.
New journey canvas experience canvas-capabilities
A new user interface is available for the journey canvas, built to scale with your most complex use cases:
- Performance — Handles large journeys with many steps and branches efficiently.
- Automatic layout — Automatically organizes activities for better readability.
- Guided authoring — Provides a structured authoring experience to help you build journeys with ease and efficiency.
Newly created journeys use the new canvas experience. For journeys created before this change, you can switch to the new experience by clicking the New experience button in the journey canvas. To revert to the old experience, click the Old experience button.
Watch this how-to video for a full walkthrough of the new canvas experience.
Add activities to your journey
To add an activity to your canvas, click the plus (+) icon between two activities and select an activity from the list to add it to your journey.
The list automatically filters to show only the activities that can be added at that specific location in your journey, rather than every activity available in the palette. If you want to see every activity regardless of location, click the Filter items icon and clear the Show only available items option.
Use the toolbar icons
The toolbar in the top right corner of the canvas provides quick access to essential functions. Use these tools to customize your canvas view and manage complex journey layouts.
Preview content in the canvas content-preview
Review what every channel activity will send without opening each one individually. Content preview renders each activity’s content right on the canvas, so you can check an entire cross-channel journey at a glance instead of clicking into activities one by one.
In the canvas toolbar, click the Expand all (eye) icon. Every channel activity expands inline to show a thumbnail of its content.
To see an activity more closely, click its thumbnail. The content opens in a centered preview where you can switch between treatments and variants when the activity uses personalization.
The preview adapts to each channel. For example, mobile messages display in a device mockup.
Content preview is available in three contexts, each showing content the way it applies at that stage:
- When you design a journey — Preview the content you authored for each activity as you build, so you can catch layout or content issues early, before you test.
- During a simulation — Preview the content rendered for the selected test user, reflecting the personalization values and the path that user follows through the journey. Learn how to run a simulation.
- In test mode — Preview the content for the journey you are testing. The content is visible, but it is not personalized for the test profile you target.
Select multiple activities for bulk actions
You can select multiple activities at once and run a bulk action on them.
To select multiple activities, use one of these methods:
- Shift + drag — Hold Shift and drag your mouse across the activities you want to select.
- Ctrl/Cmd + click — Select the first activity, then hold Ctrl (or Command on Mac) and click additional activities to select them individually.
- Toolbar — Click the Multiple selection icon in the toolbar, then click each activity you want to select.
Once selected, you can perform these bulk actions:
- Copy — Copy all selected activities to use in the same journey or paste into another journey.
- Delete — Remove all selected activities at once.
- Save as journey fragment — Convert the selected activities into a reusable journey fragment for use in other journeys.
Copy and paste activities
To reuse activities or entire journey sequences:
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Select the activities you want to copy.
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Select Copy or press Ctrl+C (or Command+C on Mac) to copy.
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Navigate to the destination, either the same journey or a different journey in your sandbox.
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Click the plus (+) icon and select Paste from the dropdown.
You can paste activities in the same order they were copied, and they will maintain their configuration. For more detailed information on copy/paste constraints and best practices, see Copy and paste activities.
To copy a single activity, select it then click the Copy icon in the activity configuration pane on the right, or press Ctrl+C (or Command+C on Mac) to copy.
To paste it, click the plus (+) icon and select Paste from the dropdown.
Join and detach branches
You can detach a branch to disconnect it from the rest of your journey without deleting it, and join it back later to reconnect it at a different point.
To detach a branch, use one of these methods:
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Click directly on the edge leading into the activity you want to detach, then select Detach edge.
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Click the plus (+) icon on that edge and select Detach edge.
Either method reconnects the edge to a new End activity, capping the chain above the detach point. The detached activity, along with anything downstream of it, is not deleted. It becomes its own disconnected branch on the canvas that you can reuse later.
To join branches, click the plus (+) icon on the edge where you want the connection to continue, then open the Join section in the dropdown. From there:
- Select a branch from the Disconnected list (branches not yet connected anywhere in the journey) or the Branches list (branches already used elsewhere in the journey). Use the search field if you have a large number of activities.
- Choose Select from canvas to highlight every eligible activity on the canvas, then click the one you want to connect to.
How-to video video
Learn how to use the new journey canvas experience.
Start your journey start-your-journey
When you design your journey, the first question you want to ask is how profiles will enter the journey.
There are two possibilities:
- Start with an event: when a journey is set to listen to events, individuals enter the journey unitarily in real-time. Messages included in your journey are sent to the person currently flowing into the journey. Learn more about events
- Start with a Read Audience: you can set your journey to listen to Adobe Experience Platform audiences. In this case, all individuals belonging to the specified audience enter the journey. Messages included in your journey are sent to the individuals belonging to the audience. Learn more about read audience. For more information on how to generate and target audiences in Journey Optimizer, refer to this section.
Define the next steps define-next-steps
After your first event or Read Audiences, you can combine the different activities to build your multi-step cross-channel scenarios. Choose, from the palette, the steps you need.
Events jo-event
Events are what trigger a personalized journey, such as an online purchase. Once someone enters a journey, they move through as an individual, and no two individuals are moving along at the same rate or along the same path.
When you start your journey with an event, the journey is triggered when the event is received. Each person in the journey then follows, individually, the next steps defined in your journey.
You can add several events in your journey, as long as they use the same namespace. Events are configured beforehand. Learn more about journey events
You can also add a Reaction event after a message to react to tracking data related to the message. This allows you, for example, to send another message if the individual opened the previous message or clicked inside it. Learn more about reaction events.
Use Audience Qualification event activity to make individuals enter or move forward in a journey based on Adobe Experience Platform audience entrances and exits. You can make all new silver customers enter a journey and send personalized messages. Learn more in this section.
Orchestration jo-orch
Orchestration activities are different conditions that help determine the next step in the journey.
From the orchestration activities, use the Read Audience activity to set your journey to listen to an Adobe Experience Platform audience. Learn more about the Read Audience activity.
Use Journey Fragments to insert reusable sets of pre-built journey nodes directly into the canvas. Fragments help teams stay consistent and move faster by avoiding rebuilding the same logic — such as eligibility checks, channel routing, or welcome sequences — from scratch. Learn more about Journey Fragments.
The other activities allow you to add conditions to your journey to define several paths, set a waiting time before executing the next activity, or end your journey. Learn more about orchestration activities.
Actions jo-actions
Actions are what you want to happen as result of some kind of trigger, like sending a message. It is the piece of journey that the customer experiences. This could be an email, mobile or Push message, or a third-party action, such as a Slack message.
The channel action activities allows you to include a message designed in Journey Optimizer. Learn more about the channel action activities
From the action activities, use custom actions to send messages with third-party systems. Learn more about custom actions.
Add alternative paths paths
You can define a fallback action in case of an error or timeout for the following journey activities: Condition and Action.
To add a fallback action for an activity, select the Add an alternative path in case of a timeout or an error box in the activity properties: another path is added after the activity. The timeout duration is defined by Admin users in the journey properties. For example, if an email takes too long to be sent or is in error, you can decide to send a push notification.
Various activities (event, action, wait) allow you to add several paths after them. To do this, place your cursor on the activity and click the “+” symbol. Only event and wait activities can be set in parallel. If several events are set in parallel, the chosen path will be the one of the first event happening.
When listening to an event, we recommend that you do not wait for the event indefinitely. It is not mandatory, just a best practice. If you want to listen to one or several events only during a certain time, you will place one or several events and a wait activity in parallel. See this section.
To delete the path, place your cursor on it and click the Delete path icon.
In the canvas, when two activities are disconnected, a warning is displayed. Place your cursor on the warning icon to display the error message. To fix the issue, simply move the disconnected activity and connect it to the previous activity.
Copy and paste activities copy-paste
You can copy one or several activities of a journey and paste them either in the same journey or a different one. This allows you to save time if you want to reuse numerous activities that have been already configured in a previous journey.
Important notes
- You can copy/paste across different tabs and browsers. You can only copy/paste activities within the same instance.
- You can not copy/paste an event if the destination journey has an event that uses a different namespace.
- Pasted activities may reference data that do not exist in the destination journey, for example if you copy/paste across different sandboxes. Always check for errors and make the required adjustments.
- Be aware that you cannot undo an action. To delete pasted activities, you will need to select and delete them. Therefore, make sure you only select the activities you need before copying them.
- You can copy activities from any journey, even ones that are in read-only.
- You can select any activity, even ones that are not linked. Linked activities will stay linked after being pasted.
Here are the steps to copy/paste activities:
- Open a journey.
- Select the activities you want to copy by moving your mouse while clicking. You can also click on each activity while pressing the Ctrl/Command key. Use Ctrl/Command + A if you want to select all activities.
- Press Ctrl/Command + C.
If you want to only copy one activity, you can click on it and use the Copy icon in the top left of the activity configuration pane.
- In any journey, press Ctrl/Command + V to paste the activities without linking them to an existing node. Pasted activities are placed in the same order. After being pasted, activities stay selected so you can easily move them. You can also place the cursor on an empty place holder and hit Ctrl/Command + V. Pasted activities will be linked to the node.
This section contains structured knowledge intended to support interpretation, retrieval, and question answering related to this topic.
For complete understanding, this information should be combined with the documentation on this page. Neither source is intended to stand alone; the page describes the feature, while this section provides additional context that helps disambiguate terminology, intent, applicability, and constraints.
- TL;DR: This page explains how to use the Journey Optimizer journey designer canvas to build a sequenced journey, use the new canvas tools, preview channel content, and copy or paste configured activities.
Intents:
- Navigate the journey designer palette, canvas, toolbar, and activity configuration pane.
- Add events, orchestration activities, and action activities to a journey.
- Use the new canvas experience to add activities, expand channel previews, select multiple activities, detach branches, and join branches.
- Preview channel activity content on the canvas while designing, during a simulation, or in test mode.
- Start a journey from an event or a Read Audience activity.
- Copy and paste activities within the same instance.
Glossary:
- Palette: The left-hand side of the journey designer where available activities are sorted into Events, Orchestration, and Actions categories (product-specific).
- Canvas: The central zone in the journey designer where activities are dropped and configured (product-specific).
- Activity configuration pane: The right-hand pane that opens when an activity is selected on the canvas and contains the activity settings (product-specific).
- New journey canvas experience: A canvas user interface built for complex use cases with performance, automatic layout, and guided authoring capabilities (product-specific).
- Content preview: A canvas capability that renders channel activity content inline as thumbnails and opens a centered preview when a thumbnail is selected (product-specific).
- Simulation: A context where content preview can reflect the selected test user, personalization values, and the path that user follows through the journey (product-specific).
- Test mode: A context where content preview shows visible content for the journey being tested, but the content is not personalized for the targeted test profile (product-specific).
Guardrails:
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For a Draft journey, Validate runs configuration checks before testing, simulation, a dry run, publication, or an approval request. It replaces Publish until validation is current and passed; errors in the Alerts panel must be resolved and validation rerun before continuing.
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Actions, the condition activity, the wait activity, and the reaction activity cannot be dropped on the canvas as the first step of a new journey.
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Content preview in test mode is visible but is not personalized for the test profile you target.
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Only event and wait activities can be set in parallel.
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Several events can be added to a journey only if they use the same namespace.
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Copy/paste across different tabs and browsers is supported only within the same instance.
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An event cannot be copied and pasted if the destination journey has an event that uses a different namespace.
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Pasted activities may reference data that does not exist in the destination journey.
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Copy/paste actions cannot be undone; pasted activities must be selected and deleted if they are no longer needed.
Terminology:
- Canonical name: journey designer. Variants used on the page: journey canvas, orchestration canvas, canvas.
- Synonyms: “Read Audience” = “Read Audiences”.
- Do not confuse: “Simulation” content preview, which can reflect the selected test user and personalization values, is not the same as “test mode” content preview, where content is visible but not personalized for the targeted test profile.
- Do not confuse: “Events” trigger journey entry or movement, while “Actions” are what happens as a result of a trigger, such as sending a message.
FAQ:
- Q: What does the Expand all toolbar icon do? — It expands all channel activities to show a thumbnail preview of their content directly on the canvas, and each thumbnail can be opened in a fullscreen preview.
- Q: Is content preview personalized in test mode? — No. In test mode, the content is visible, but it is not personalized for the test profile you target.
- Q: When is content preview personalized? — During a simulation, content preview reflects the selected test user, including personalization values and the path that user follows through the journey.
- Q: How can profiles enter a journey? — Profiles can enter when a configured event is received or when a Read Audience activity triggers the journey.
- Q: Can activities be copied between journeys? — Yes. Activities can be copied and pasted in the same journey or a different journey, but copy/paste is supported only within the same instance.
- Q: What can be done with multiple selected activities? — Multiple selected activities can be copied, deleted, or saved as a journey fragment.