The scenario FAQ section provides answers to the most common questions and helps solve the most common issues. For any additional help with debugging, contact support.
Q: What happens if I edit a running scenario?
Updating a node: the current users on that node (usually a small number, except for wait nodes) finish the scenario with the old version, and all new customers arriving on that node (no matter where they're coming from) will flow according to the latest version.
Deleting a node stops the execution of all unprocessed customers on that node; for example, customers in the wait nodes will be lost. They won't continue to the next node.
Creating a new node or modifying a node connection takes effect immediately; for example, changing the outgoing connection from a wait node means that existing customers in the node will use the updated connection once they finish waiting.
Q: How to check where and which customers are dropping off in the scenario flow?
The first source of information for "Where are my customers dropping off my scenario flow?" is the Evaluate tab of your scenario. When you hover over the nodes in your scenario, you see how your customers flew through it, how many were processed successfully, and, if problems occur, how many customers aborted the flow due to an error. For condition nodes, when hovering over them, you can check how many customers matched and how many customers didn't match the conditions.
Should you need precise information for customers who are dropping off loose ends of your scenario flow, you can track a custom event when that happens. Add an "Add event" node, and connect it to the loose end of your condition node. See Scenario Operators for how to add an "Add event" node.
Q: What happens when a customer fails in a campaign node?
When a customer fails a campaign node (email, push notification, SMS), they don't proceed in the scenario flow. The exception to this is the webhook node, which has two outputs: success and failure.
Q: How to investigate errors in the action nodes?
You may encounter an error message in action nodes in the scenario evaluation tab. That applies to action nodes, such as email, browser push, mobile push, webhooks, and more.
As an example, let's investigate these webhook error messages.
To effectively investigate error messages, follow these steps:
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Create a detailed report:
Generate a report that reveals the nature of the encountered error. To begin, decide on the report's timeframe. If you're unsure about when the errors started, you can select the Lifetime option. -
Set up report rows:
Setcampaign > messagesin the report rows. This section comprises various messages, including error messages, providing insight into the reasons behind the errors. Ensure that grouping is set to Auto. Choosing None might result in excessive error messages. For this discussion, we'll use the Top(4) option to focus on the four key error messages.
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Configure metrics:
Create acount > event > campaignmetric and specify the campaign ID associated with the error-generating messages. Also, indicate the action_id corresponding to the node that produces errors. In this example, it's number 9 (you can verify this using the webhook image). If you're interested in all error messages from a particular scenario, you can omit the action_id. -
Choose the proper metric settings:
Set the metric to All. Although First could work, it would only represent each error once per customer profile. Opting for "All" is useful when dealing with numerous errors and needing an overview of their overall distribution.
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Identify error sources:
Now, the sources of error messages are visible. You can delve into the root causes of these errors. This webhook in our example has an invalid header name, incorrect authentication, and no access key provided. Remember, these are just sample error messages for this webhook. You can encounter various error messages based on the action node type.
Q: How to check the activity of a scenario on a timeline?
The best way to check a scenario's activity on a timeline is to use a report. With any timeline report, the most straightforward approach is to go Add timestamp to the report Rows. Choose a format for the timeline as you wish (month/day/hour granularity). It will be the base timeline for your report.
Afterwards, add a count event campaign metric. Afterwards, you may further filter the metric based on what particular scenario events you are interested in, or drill down into the report Columns, for example, by campaign statusattribute. This report, based on the level of drilldown and specificity of the metrics, can give you a topline or detailed view of what has been happening with your scenario.
Q: How to debug Issues with scenario triggering?
Check trigger scenarios for imported events
If the event-triggering mechanism relies on imported data, ensure that you've correctly set up the "trigger on-event campaigns" option in the import that imports data that is supposed to trigger scenarios.
If you discover that you haven't selected this option, enabling it won't retroactively activate all previous events. Instead, it will initiate scenario activation going forward.
Sometimes, imported data might not automatically align with existing scenarios. Double-check that the imported event data matches the trigger conditions outlined in your scenarios.
Event tracking timing discrepancy
It's easy to import events with current, past, and future timestamps. This section explains the consequences of importing an event with a future timestamp when triggering a scenario.
Events will launch an on-event trigger upon arrival on the platform, regardless of their timestamp. If we select such events in the 'On event' trigger without a date filter, then once they are associated with the customer profile, they will trigger the scenario.
When utilizing any date filter in the 'On event' trigger, it will trigger only events with timestamps in the past.
As an example, use the filter below with the 'On event' trigger:
In this example, the 'abr' event was imported with a future timestamp, but it didn't trigger the above trigger because of the filter condition. When using a date filter in an 'On event' trigger and importing events with a future timestamp, the imported time will not match the scenario trigger's date filter.
Note that reimporting the same events will result in deduplication, but deduplicated events will still trigger scenarios if they pass the trigger filter.
Scenario-added events and triggering allowance
For events added through scenarios, make sure to review the "allow triggering" option. If this option isn't enabled, the trigger might not activate even if the event conditions are met. Verify that the "allow triggering" setting is appropriately configured for each scenario-added event.
Active scenario status
Triggers rely on active scenarios to function correctly. Check whether the scenario associated with the trigger is active during the time of the trigger event. If the scenario is inactive, triggers tied to it won't fire. Ensure that the scenario is enabled and operational.
Active trigger status
Also, you must set triggers to active to fire. Make sure that all triggers you want to activate are active before launching the scenario. Inactive triggers will be grayed out; you can set them to active by clicking on the reset trigger button.
Scenario trigger node cConditions
A subtle reason for non-triggering scenarios could be changes in trigger node conditions over time. If the conditions specified in the scenario's trigger node have changed, they might no longer align with historical events. Review the conditions set at the time of the trigger event and cross-reference them with the current scenario configuration.
Event payload integrity
You should make sure that event data is consistent and that there are no data type mismatches or corrupted values (for example, a list imported as a string). Ensure the event payload structure aligns with the trigger conditions and data requirements, especially when events come from different sources, as trigger conditions are consistent across them.
Trigger node limitations
Certain types of events don't trigger scenarios. Check if you aren't using one of these events.
Check for "no longer exists" error
In some cases, a node that follows a trigger on an event node with less than 30 30-second delay will return a "no longer exists error for the profiles created by the tracking of the trigger event. If you encounter such an error, increase the trigger delay to allow a customer profile to be entirely created by the time the scenario triggers.
Make sure this is really a trigger-related issue
Maybe customer profiles didn't reach the active node because of a filter node before it. If a scenario includes a limit node, ensure it was not reached.
Q: Why am I unable to copy & paste nodes in the scenario?
Make sure that the "clipboard" permission is enabled. The following example is from Google Chrome; other modern browsers should have a similar setup.
When you are in the scenario, navigate to the top-left corner and click the lock icon.
Here you can quickly observe if the permission has been enabled.
If you can't find this permission there, you can go to the browser settings and select privacy and security.
Q: How to monitor and check what dynamic content is sent to customers?
There are multiple ways to monitor what is actually being sent to your customers when you use personalization. The best way to track the most essential elements and parts of content is to use the Custom campaigns tracking feature. This feature will allow you to track specific personalized values (usually results of personalization using Jinja) directly in the campaign events as custom attributes.
Alternatively, especially handy when testing campaigns with complex personalization, the helpful approach is to use real personalized content of your real customers in a test campaign. It usually involves using a webhook to send information from one profile (a real customer) to another (your testing profile), providing real inputs for testing.
Q: In what time zone do scenarios run, and why?
The Scenarios and Email Campaigns always run in UTC-0, so you don't need to worry about time offsets across different time zones.
The rationale for running the scenarios in UTC-0 is that when a user triggers the scenario, we want it not to depend on time zone (so that, whether someone triggers it in the US or Europe, the same customers will flow through the condition).
If you use relative filters like THIS month, THIS day, and more, keep in mind that some things in the platform are adjusted based on your user time zone setting. Still, scenarios are constantly evaluated and executed in UTC-0 to avoid inconsistent behavior if multiple people from different time zones work on the same scenario.
By avoiding a partial-day filter like 'today' and setting a static period, you can make the most of a relative filter. What we mean by 'static' here is, for example, 1 hour before 7 days, or 26 hours before 14 days, as required based on your target customer base's location.
What does this mean for me if I am creating conditions using relative time ranges elsewhere in the platform, for example, in Segmentations, and want to use them in the scenario as conditions?
The time zone you selected will apply to all dates and times throughout the project, except in the scenario. The scenario is looking at those date times from the UTC-0 perspective.
Q: What time zone is the frequency policy in?
The frequency policy always uses the absolute time filter, so if you filter the last 1 day, you will get the previous 24 hours.
The only exclusion to this would be the relative time filter. If you select a single day within the relative time range as the frequency policy, you will get the range only since 00.00 in the time zone specified in your user settings.
Q: What do weeks ago and months ago mean in the relative time filter? Would that be a week (7 calendar days), months (30 calendar days), as opposed to the same day in the previous month, and years (365 days), as opposed to the exact date last year?
We use the relative delta approach in the frequency policy. It adds months and years and more, such as adding literal years, so it also follows leap years.
So those are exactly 30 calendar days and 365 days in the respective relative time filters.
Q: What happens to customers if they don't match a condition in a scenario?
Whenever you use a condition node in the scenario, if the customer doesn't match the condition and the red output isn't connected to any other node, the customer drops out of the scenario. Once they don't match the condition, they leave the scenario altogether, and they would need to match the scenario trigger conditions to enter it again. To keep the customers in the scenario, you need to create a node connected to the condition's negative-red output. You will ensure that the customer remains in the scenario and continues to be part of the flow.
Q: How to resolve 'Error! This campaign_design indirectly uses too many non-global objects from other initiatives. Please resolve the dependencies or create the campaign_design in another initiative.'
This error indicates that your campaign design relies on objects or scenarios tied to an initiative but not marked as global. Since non-global objects are restricted to their respective initiatives, this creates a conflict.
You can resolve this error using one of the following approaches.
Option 1: Align dependencies
Ensure that all objects involved in the campaign design are aligned adequately by doing the following:
- Identify which objects or scenarios aren't Global and belong to different initiatives.
- Change the status of these objects to Global to allow you to access them across initiatives without restrictions.
- Move all dependent objects into the same initiative as the campaign design. It ensures consistency and eliminates errors.
Option 2: Recreate the campaign design in a compatible initiative
If modifying dependencies isn't feasible, another solution is to build the campaign design within an initiative that already contains the required objects. This approach avoids the need for extensive changes to existing objects or their locations.
Important notes
It's best to review and manage dependencies manually rather than rely on automated processes, as the latter can cause irreversible changes and disrupt existing setups.