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Triggered By may only appear in newly created Flow Builder campaigns. Campaigns created before this feature was released don’t show a Triggered By setting and keep working as they did. Contact your Extole team about upgrading an existing campaign.

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Overview

In a Flow Builder campaign, each business event (Shared, Signed Up, Converted, and the like), each reward, and each call-to-action has a Triggered By setting. It names the event that starts that step. Flow Builder shows the selection as a chip on the card, so you can see what starts each part of the campaign without opening its rules. All default programs use Triggered By. A campaign will not publish while a Triggered By setting it needs is empty. Declaring your events before you create the campaign is the easiest path: every Triggered By fills itself in, and the campaign publishes on the first try.
A yellow No Trigger Events are selected. notice means that step’s Triggered By setting is empty. The notice stays while you edit, including when the step is turned off.For Signed Up, Converted, a call-to-action, and the other steps that check this on publish, an enabled step will not publish. The error is The Triggered By setting on ‘step’ is not configured. Select a trigger event before publishing. A turned-off step can still publish, and the notice remains. The next publish after you turn that step on fails until you select a trigger event. A business event you add from the library can publish with the notice showing; it does not run until you select a trigger event. If Triggered By has nothing you can select, see When Triggered By Has Nothing to Select.

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Where Trigger Events Come From

Everything you select in Triggered By is a trigger event. Trigger events come from two places:
  • Trigger events the campaign produces itself: shares, share link clicks, sign-ups from the landing page, ambassador applications, and the campaign’s own business events. These are connected automatically when the campaign is created.
  • Trigger events from outside the campaign: events your systems send through the Event API, events you send to Extole in a file through File Integration, and events your website or app sends through the Javascript SDK or the Mobile SDK, either by requesting a zone or, on your website, through a tag. You declare these on the matching extension before a campaign can select them.
A trigger event from the Javascript SDK or Mobile SDK comes into existence when your website or app calls Extole, and it is usually named the same as the zone it calls. A request for the homepage_banner zone produces the homepage_banner trigger event, and a conversion tag on your site that sends conversion produces the conversion trigger event. Otherwise, it works like any other trigger event.
When a campaign is created, each Triggered By looks for a declared trigger event with the name it expects. If it finds one, it selects it for you. If it does not, the setting stays empty until you fill it.
A newly declared event is never added to an existing campaign automatically. If the campaign was created before you declared the event, select it in Triggered By yourself.

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Choose the Extension

Declare a trigger event on the extension that carries it to Extole. The same event can arrive more than one way: if you send conversion from a tag on your site, declare it on the Javascript SDK; if you send it server to server, declare it on the Event API; if it arrives in a file, declare it on File Integration. Trigger events that come from a partner integration work the same way. The integration’s trigger events appear in Triggered By alongside your extensions, and you select them the same way. The same zone requested from your website and from your apps produces a distinct trigger event in each place, so each is declared separately and you select each one. See Javascript SDK and Mobile SDK Extensions for where the SDK trigger events are declared and which ones each extension declares by default.

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Check the Extensions

  1. Open Partners in My Extole and select the Extensions tab.
  2. Look for Event API, File Integration, Javascript SDK, and Mobile SDK among the installed extensions.
  3. Open each one and check that it lists the trigger events your campaign needs. On File Integration, check Trigger Events on each job’s Create Events.
If an extension is missing, click + New Extension, select it, install it, and publish it. Install only one copy of each extension. If a live copy already exists, use it: a second copy splits your trigger events and makes the Triggered By list harder to read. The Event API declares no trigger events by default. File Integration installs a Delayed Event with a blank Event to Delay, which a campaign can’t select until you name it; see Delay a File Event. The Javascript SDK and Mobile SDK declare a default set; Javascript SDK and Mobile SDK Extensions lists them, and covers what to do when an SDK extension installed before Triggered By lists none.

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What Each Program Needs

Declare the trigger events below before you create a campaign for one of these programs. The zone trigger events listed in the table below are beyond the defaults that come with the Javascript SDK extension. Declare the other trigger events on whichever extension you send them through: the Event API, File Integration, or the Javascript SDK when a tag on your site sends them. If you rename a business event in Customer Appreciation, Reward for Action, Refer a Member, Welcome Offer for Banks and CUs, or the Custom Campaign Template, it expects an event with its new name. Declare that name instead.
The Converted business event in Welcome Offer listens for conversion. If your systems send converted instead, either send conversion, or declare converted on the extension you send it through and select it in the business event’s Triggered By.

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Set Up Triggered By

  1. Find the step. Open the business event, reward, or call-to-action in Flow Builder and note which trigger event it should listen for. The table above lists what each program expects.
  2. Choose the extension. Use Choose the Extension to decide where the trigger event comes from.
  3. Declare the trigger event. Open that extension, add the trigger event with the exact name your systems, site, or app send, and publish the extension. For the Javascript SDK and Mobile SDK, see Add a Trigger Event.
  4. Select it. Open the step in the campaign, open Triggered By, and select the trigger event. Options are grouped by where they come from: this campaign, your integrations and extensions, and your other campaigns, which start collapsed. When the same zone is requested from more than one place, select the trigger event for each.
  5. Publish the campaign.
Each chip in Triggered By names where its trigger event comes from, for example This Campaign: Converted or Event API: Conversion. A chip from another campaign or an extension opens it in a new tab. A gray chip is a selection whose component is turned off. Business events you add to a campaign from the library still listen for an input event with their own name until you select something in Triggered By. Once you make a selection, the selection is what the business event listens for.

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Example: A Refer a Friend Campaign Fails on Converted

Publishing fails with The Triggered By setting on ‘converted’ is not configured.
  1. Converted should fire when your backend reports a purchase, so it belongs on the Event API.
  2. Open Partners, select Extensions, and open Event API. If it is not installed, click + New Extension and install it.
  3. Under Integration Events, add an event named conversion and publish the extension.
  4. Open the Refer a Friend campaign and select the friend’s Converted business event.
  5. In Triggered By, select the Event API’s conversion event.
  6. Publish the campaign.
From then on, every conversion event you send for a referred friend records their Converted step and starts the rewards that follow it. If your site sends conversion from a conversion tag instead, declare it on the Javascript SDK under Tagged CTAs in step 3, and select the Javascript SDK’s conversion in step 5.

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Example: Signed Up Shows No Trigger Events Are Selected

Signed Up is turned on and shows a yellow No Trigger Events are selected. notice. Publishing fails with The Triggered By setting on ‘signed_up’ is not configured. If Signed Up is turned off, the campaign can publish with the notice still showing.
  1. Open Signed Up and check Triggered By.
  2. If an option from This Campaign for the landing-page email capture is listed, select it and publish.
  3. If your own systems send the signup event, declare that event on the matching extension, select it, and publish. See Set Up Triggered By.
  4. If Triggered By has no option for that signup, the campaign is missing the in-campaign trigger event that current themes create with the campaign. Contact your Extole team to add it. Declaring the event only on an extension does not replace that in-campaign producer.

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Example: A Welcome Offer Campaign Fails on a Banner

Publishing fails on the show_reward_banner call-to-action.
  1. Your website requests the show_reward_banner zone, so its trigger event belongs on the Javascript SDK.
  2. Open the Javascript SDK extension.
  3. Under Tagged CTAs, add show_reward_banner. Add embedded_welcome_experience and show_reward_overlay while you are there, since Welcome Offer needs all three.
  4. Publish the extension, select show_reward_banner in the call-to-action’s Triggered By if it did not fill itself in, and publish the campaign.

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When Triggered By Has Nothing to Select

Triggered By lists trigger events from this campaign, your extensions and integrations, and your other campaigns. If nothing eligible appears for the event an enabled step needs, that step will not publish until something you can select is available. A turned-off step can publish with the list still empty.
  • Trigger event from outside the campaign. Declare it on the matching extension, then select it yourself. A newly declared event is never added to an existing campaign automatically. Follow Set Up Triggered By.
  • Trigger event the campaign produces itself, such as a friend signing up on the landing page. Current themes connect these automatically when the campaign is created. If you add a business event later, for example Signed Up, and Triggered By has no in-campaign option, the campaign is missing the companion trigger event that declares that signup. Contact your Extole team to add it. Selecting an Event API or SDK declaration does not replace that in-campaign producer.

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If Publishing Fails

The publish message names the step by its internal name, such as converted or signed_up. If another publish error names Triggered By or a trigger event, contact your Extole team with the campaign link and the exact message. A campaign that publishes is not proof that a call-to-action shows everywhere its zone is requested. Publishing checks only that something is selected. If a call-to-action shows on your website but not in your app, see Why a Zone Shows on Your Website but Not in Your App.

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Good to Know

  • A reward can list more than one event, with a trade-off. When a reward’s Triggered By holds more than one business event, any of them can earn the reward, but the reward no longer records the earning event to dashboard data and no longer creates the advocate–friend relationship. Both work only with a single event selected. A call-to-action can list several trigger events without this trade-off.
  • Not every event uses Triggered By. Events that My Extole itself sends, such as an ambassador’s application being reviewed, and events tied to opening a link or page, such as the landing page and share experience, still use trigger rules and do not show a Triggered By setting.