Podium Orchestrations Overview

About Podium

Podium orchestrations provide an easy way to create, visualize and monitor cross-channel triggered campaigns for each customer touch point.

You are able to launch multiple automations using a single trigger, making welcome or abandon campaigns a breeze to set up.

Once an orchestration is enabled, you can view overall performance KPIs of each automation or drill in for more detailed analytics.

Orchestration goals can be used to remove contacts from an orchestration based on their real-time behavior.

Orchestrations support draft, published and past versions for powerful version control.

You can add detailed descriptions to every component of the orchestration, making it easy to visualize the strategy of each automation. You are also able to print the orchestration for sharing with other team members.

 Podium Overview

Creating a New Podium Orchestration

Navigate to Message Automation -> Podium Orchestrations and click New.

Give the orchestration a name, add any tags and click Continue. You will be taken to the Podium orchestration main page. The order of operations are exactly how the cards are displayed, with contacts hitting the delay first, then then filter/audience criteria, and then the action. If a contact is filtered out of an automation, they are filtered out of the orchestration flow.

 

Orchestration Settings

From the main page you are able to configure the orchestration with settings defined in the table below.

Name	Description
Orchestration name	Name the orchestration
Enable/Disable	Enables or disables the orchestration. An orchestration must be published before it can be enabled. Disabling a published orchestration will stop any messages from being sent.
Save Draft	Saves an orchestration draft.
Publish	Publishes an orchestration draft. If viewing a published orchestration, there will be an option to Copy to Draft.
Version View	Displays the orchestration version view (draft, published or past versions).
Goal View	Displays the orchestration goal.
Orchestration View	Displays the orchestration view.
Trigger Component	Defines the initial trigger for the orchestration. Trigger Options: Contact's profile is updated, a contact's real time behavior, a date or timestamp.
Delay Component	Defines the delay for the automation branch. Note that each delay in the branch is based on the initial trigger. Delay Options: Immediate, minutes, hours or days.
Filter Component	Filters the recipients of the automation using an Audience Rule.
Action Component	Defines the action for the automation. Action Options: Send an email, an SMS (if enabled in the account), mobile push (if enabled in the account), a request using Open channel to a third party system (if enabled in the account) or a Data Automation job (if enabled in the account).
Wait Until Component	Defines the trigger for subsequent automations. Trigger Options: Do not wait, wait for previous message event (opened, clicked or bounced), wait for other event (message event or custom named event).
Add Action	Adds additional automation actions under a single trigger using the plus icon next to an automation.
Add Trigger	Adds additional triggered automations with using the plus icon under an automation. Additional triggers will be labeled as: Wait Until.
Print	Prints the orchestration page.
Zoom	Zooms in or out of the orchestration.
Automation KPIs	Displays KPIs on a published/enabled orchestration.

Defining the Trigger

The first step in an orchestration is defining a trigger. Clicking on the trigger component will open a window containing these three trigger options:

• A contact's profile is updated - triggers an orchestration based on a profile change.
• A contact's real time behavior - triggers an orchestration based on an action a contact takes.
• A date or timestamp - triggers an orchestration based on the proximity of a date or timestamp.

A Contact's Profile Is Updated

This trigger is used for starting orchestrations when a change is made to a contact's profile.

For example, you can start a series of automations when a contact is added to the newsletter list or when a contact's loyalty attribute is changed.

Selecting this trigger type will display options for choosing either a contact attribute or a list, with dropdown menus for all available attributes or lists in your account. 

Use Case - Welcome Series

Use this trigger when setting up a welcome series. Learn more about setting up a welcome series using Podium.

A Contact's Real Time Behavior

This trigger is used for starting orchestrations based on a real-time behavior a contact makes.

For example, you can start a series of automations when a contact opens or clicks a previously sent automation, or when a contact performs a custom event (browses a page on your website, adds something to the cart, places an order, etc).

Selecting this trigger type will display options for choosing either a message event or a custom named event as the real-time behavior.

Use Case - Abandon Campaign

Use this trigger when setting up an abandon cart/browse/search campaign. Learn more about setting up an abandon cart campaign using Podium.

A Date or Timestamp

This trigger is used for starting orchestrations based on a date.

For example, you can start a series of automations based on a birthdate, an anniversary, an expiration, etc.

Selecting this trigger will display options for choosing a system date or a custom date.

Note: Date or Timestamp triggers will only count as triggered if the contact meets both the trigger rule AND the audience filter

Use Case - Expiration Notification

Use this trigger when setting up an expiration campaign such as when a contact's membership is about to expire.

Setting the Delay

Once a trigger is defined, you have the option to set a delay before the automation is sent. If there are multiple automations in the branch, the delay for each branch will be based on the initial trigger.

The delay may be set as immediate (no delay) or a specified number of minutes, hours or days. A delay can not be set for orchestrations using a data/timestamp trigger. The delay component will be greyed-out.

Note: When there are past and published versions of an orchestration, the original orchestration delay is the source of truth. For example, if the orchestration was setup to delay for 1 day, then you published and updated with content changes, the original 1 day time-stamp would still be applicable.

 

Setting the Audience Filter

The audience filter allows you to filter the recipients of the automation by an Audience Rule. You are able to set up a new audience or load a saved audience.

Defining the Action

The last component in an automation is the action. Clicking on the action component will open a window containing the three action options:

• Send an Email - sends contacts an automated email message.
• Send an SMS (if enabled in the account) - sends contacts an automated SMS message.
• A Push Notification (if enabled in the account) - sends contacts an automated push message.
• Make an Open channel request (if enabled in the account) - makes a RESTful API call to a specified endpoint. 
• Run a Data Automation job (if enabled in the account) - runs a data job to transform the collection data specified.

Message Creation

Clicking on either of the options will open up the automated message creation page. You are able to use either the Sculpt or HTML editor for creating message content.

The functionality of message creation is identical to other automated messages minus the ability to edit the sending method.

Note that the automated messages created in Podium will only be viewable and editable within the orchestration. You will not be able to access Podium automations outside of Podium.

Adding Additional Automations

Podium supports multiple automations in a single orchestration. Clicking the Plus button will add an additional automation either next to or below the current automation.

If an automation is added below, there will be an option to set an additional trigger: Wait Until.

You have the options for do not wait, wait for previous message events (opened, clicked or bounced) or wait for other event (message event or custom named event) before the automation will send.

Setting the Orchestration Goal

The orchestration goal is used for defining a primary objective for the orchestration. This objective is defined by a custom event such as "placed an order", "viewed a webpage", etc. When contacts complete the objective, they can be excluded from the remaining actions within the orchestration or continue through the remaining actions.  Note that the orchestration goal is optional and not required to publish and enable the orchestration.

Clicking on the Goal icon will display options to set a goal for the orchestration. Give the goal a name, select a custom named event and define what happens to a contact when the goal is met. There are options to keep the contact in the orchestration or remove them.

Adding Descriptions and Printing

When a component is configured, a default description is added. You can easily edit the description by clicking and typing text in the description field.

You can then zoom in or out of an orchestration and then print for sharing with other team members.

Publish and Enable

Once all components are configured and message content is created and published you can publish the entire orchestration by clicking the Publish Draft button.

If any components are not complete or there are unpublished messages, you will see an error with the incomplete components highlighted.

After successfully publishing the orchestration, you can then enable it using the Enable/Disable dropdown. In the published state, the delay, filter, and action message are read-only until the orchestration is copied to draft.

Once published, you have the option to Copy to Draft and make any edits to the orchestration without affecting the live published version. All past published versions will be saved.

When an orchestration is running and then disabled, all message sending will be stopped for that orchestration, even if the contact is in the delayed state and all KPI updates will resume once the orchestration is enabled.

 

 

Orchestration Performance KPIs

Once an orchestration is published, enabled and sending, you can view key performance indicators for each automation within the orchestration.

• Triggered - Total number of contacts that triggered the orchestration
• Delayed - the number of triggered contacts in the delayed state
• Filtered Out - the number of contacts that didn't meet the audience criteria and were filtered out of the automation
• Email Sent - the number of contacts that received the email message
• SMS Sent - (if enabled in the account) the number of contacts that received the SMS message 
• Push Sent - (if enabled in the account)the number of contacts that received the push message
• Wait Until - Total number of contacts that have triggered the Wait Until state

Performance KPIs are available for the entire orchestration and for every automation within the orchestration. 

If viewing the analytics from past versions, you will see all performance KPIs up until the point that version was re-published.