Flows
Overview
A flow is a communication sequence that is triggered by an event for an individual customer. This is primarily by email (“Email Flow”), however, there may also be postcard flows. Once triggered the flow will move through the defined sequence of steps to market to the customer. In the past the industry has referred to this type of marketing as “auto responders”.
Creating a Flow
Navigate to the Flows sub-menu under Communications and click on New Flow as shown below.
The new flow dialog will appear as shown below.
Choose to create a new flow from scratch or choose a built in flow from the Public Library.
For a new flow you’ll be presented with the following form:
A description of all of the fields in the Flow Editor
Field | Values | Description |
|---|---|---|
Flow Name |
| This is the name of the flow. Please note that this will appear in the UTM parameters so make sure it is appropriate for customers to see. |
What will trigger this flow? | Order - When an order has shipped | The triggering event that will kick off this flow and determines the recipients of the flow. If the first part of the trigger contains “Order” or “Cart” then it means that the marketing campaign will have access to either an Order or Cart object associated with the enrollment into the flow. (“Email Flow”) |
From Friendly Name |
| The name associated with the email address being used. This will appear in the customer’s email client so “<Name> as <Company>” is a great way to personalize this. |
Which address should emails send from? |
| The email address to send from. The domain portion has to be one of your validated sending domains. |
Allow Concurrent Enrollment |
| By default a customer can be enrolled in the flow multiple times concurrently. If that behavior is undesirable, uncheck the box. |
Customer Filter | Someone’s Cart | Allows for further filtering of the customers that enter the flow. This is similar to the segment filtering. Since flows are often associated with Orders or Carts, filtering based upon Someone’s Cart or Someone’s Order is very common. |
After clicking the Create flow button, the empty flow will appear on the screen. You can begin adding steps to your flow by clicking the plus button.
At this point all of the steps, statistics, etc. are the same between flows and campaigns.
Active Flow Menu (Toolbar Actions)
When editing an active Flow in the Flow Editor, a toolbar appears at the bottom of the screen providing quick access to common actions. These controls allow you to test, modify, save, and control the operational state of the Flow.
Note: This toolbar is only visible when editing an existing Flow and may vary slightly depending on the Flow’s current state (active, paused, or offline).
Toolbar Actions
Button | Description |
|---|---|
Drain | Allows the Flow to stop accepting new entrants while continuing to process customers already in the Flow until completion. Useful for safely retiring a Flow without abruptly stopping in-progress communications. |
Test Flow | Simulates the Flow logic using test data. This helps validate branching, timing, and conditions without impacting real customers. |
Test Emails | Sends test versions of email steps within the Flow to a specified email address. This is useful for verifying formatting, content, and personalization variables. |
Undo | Reverts the most recent change made in the Flow editor. Multiple undo actions may be available depending on session history. |
Save | Saves all current changes to the Flow configuration. Changes are not applied until saved. |
Take Offline | Immediately disables the Flow. No new customers will enter, and existing participants will stop progressing through the Flow. |
Pause Flow | Temporarily pauses the Flow. Customers will continue to be enrolled into the first step for the flow. Existing customers remain in their current step but will not advance until the Flow is resumed. |
When to Use Each Action
Use Drain when replacing or retiring a Flow but you want existing customers to complete the sequence.
Use Pause Flow for temporary stops (e.g., promotions, troubleshooting).
Use Take Offline when you need to immediately halt all activity.
Use Test Flow / Test Emails before activating or modifying live flows to ensure correct behavior.
Use Save frequently to avoid losing configuration changes.
Statistics
When you are ready to activate your flow, click the Review and Activate button as shown below.
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: How do I configure recipients to a flow?
Answer: You’ll set the flow trigger. Then you can apply additional filtering using customer filters.
Question: When reviewing a flow, the statistics are set to “1 day”, however, when I view the number of “Sent” to the number of waiting at the first wait step, the number waiting does not match, why is there a discrepancy?
Answer: When setting the reporting interval to 1 day that represents the date range with starting date set to “00:00:00” and the ending date hours at “23:59:59”, whereas the wait step hourly for the past day is showing as of the current time of day when viewing it. So, for example, if the flow statistics are showing are “1 day = 08/17/2025 00:00:00 through 08/17/2025 23:59:59”, and you are viewing the the wait step at 10:33, then the wait step is reporting on “1 day = 08/17/2025 10:33:00 through 08/18/2025 10:33:00”. So, there is going to be some deviation between the two reporting statistics.
Question: We have a flow running, we have disabled a wait step that had 20 people waiting. Since the step is now disabled, will these customers be moved to the next step or will diabling the step only affect new customers that enter the flow?
Answer: Traffic that has already reached the wait step will continue to wait until the designated time even if you disable the step.
NOTE: You can however click on the triple dot button and select release to send them on their way.
Traffic that reaches the wait step that is already disabled will proceed straight through it with no pause.
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