Orchestrations

Orchestrations are multi-step, multi-channel customer workflows that orchestrate personalized experiences across your entire customer lifecycle. Using a visual canvas editor, you design the path customers take — from entry triggers through wait steps, branching logic, and destination actions — all executed automatically at scale.

Why Orchestrations?

Traditional campaign tools force you to set up disconnected, one-shot sends. Orchestrations let you think in terms of customer experiences rather than individual messages:

Multi-step orchestration — Chain actions across days, weeks, or months based on customer behavior
Multi-channel activation — Combine email, SMS, push notifications, ad audiences, webhooks, and profile updates in a single flow
Dynamic branching — Route customers through different paths based on traits, events, or random splits
Real-time responsiveness — React to customer actions as they happen with event-based triggers and wait conditions
Visual design — Build and understand complex workflows through an intuitive drag-and-drop canvas

How Orchestrations Work

Customers enter the orchestration when they match entry criteria — joining an audience, triggering an event, or being manually added
The orchestration engine moves each customer through the canvas tile by tile, respecting wait durations and evaluating branch conditions
Actions execute at each action tile — sending to a destination, updating a profile, or calling a webhook
Customers exit when they reach an exit tile, meet exit criteria, or are manually removed

Orchestration Canvas

The orchestration canvas is a visual editor where you design your workflow by placing and connecting tiles. Each tile represents a step in the customer orchestration:

Tile Type	Purpose	Example
Entry	Define who enters the orchestration	”Users who join the High-Value Customers audience”
Wait	Pause before the next step	”Wait 3 days” or “Wait until user opens email”
Branch	Split into different paths	”If lifetime value > $500, go left; otherwise go right”
Action	Send to a destination	”Send welcome email via Braze”
Update Profile	Modify customer traits	”Set onboarding_stage = ‘completed‘“
Webhook	Call an external API	”POST to internal reward service”
Sub-Orchestration	Link to another orchestration	”Enter the re-engagement orchestration”
Exit	Remove from orchestration	”Orchestration complete”

Tiles are connected by edges that define the flow direction. An orchestration must have exactly one Entry tile and at least one Exit tile.

Orchestration States

An orchestration progresses through a defined set of states:

State	Description
Draft	Orchestration is being designed on the canvas. No customers are processed.
Active	Orchestration is live. New customers enter based on triggers, and the engine processes them through tiles.
Paused	Orchestration is temporarily stopped. No new customers enter, and active members are held at their current tile.
Completed	Orchestration has been archived. No new entries. Existing members may still be processed to exit.

Key Capabilities

Entry Flexibility

Orchestrations support multiple entry mechanisms to cover every use case:

Audience-based entry — Customers enter when they join a specified audience
Event-based entry — Customers enter when they perform a specific action (e.g., “signed_up”, “cart_abandoned”)
Manual entry — Upload a list of customer IDs or trigger entry via the API

Branching Logic

Control the customer path with conditional logic:

Condition branches — Evaluate trait values, event properties, or audience membership to route customers
Percentage splits — Randomly divide customers for A/B testing (e.g., 80/20 split)
Time-based branches — Route based on time of day, day of week, or relative timing

Execution Monitoring

Track orchestration performance in real time:

Active members count — How many customers are currently in the orchestration
Per-tile analytics — How many customers have passed through each tile, with conversion rates
Error tracking — Monitor failed actions with retry status and error details
Pause/resume controls — Safely pause an orchestration without losing state

API Reference

Orchestrations are managed through the Zeotap REST API:


# List all orchestrations
GET /api/v1/journeys
 
# Get an orchestration with its canvas definition
GET /api/v1/journeys/{id}
 
# Create an orchestration
POST /api/v1/journeys
 
# Update an orchestration (draft only)
PUT /api/v1/journeys/{id}
 
# Activate an orchestration
POST /api/v1/journeys/{id}/activate
 
# Pause an orchestration
POST /api/v1/journeys/{id}/pause
 
# Resume a paused orchestration
POST /api/v1/journeys/{id}/resume
 
# Delete an orchestration (draft only)
DELETE /api/v1/journeys/{id}

See the API Reference for full request/response schemas.

Best Practices

Start simple — Begin with a linear orchestration (entry, wait, action, exit) before adding branches. Validate the core flow before adding complexity.
Set exit criteria — Always define conditions under which customers should leave the orchestration early (e.g., they convert, they unsubscribe, or they’ve been in the orchestration too long).
Use sub-orchestrations for reuse — If you find yourself duplicating tile sequences across orchestrations, extract them into a sub-orchestration.
Test with a small audience — Create a test audience with known members and run them through the orchestration before activating with your full audience.
Monitor after launch — Check the execution dashboard within the first hour of activation to catch configuration issues early.

Next Steps

Create your first orchestration — Step-by-step guide to building and activating an orchestration
Tile types reference — Detailed documentation for all 8 tile types
Branching logic — Deep dive into condition branches, percentage splits, and time-based routing
Execution & monitoring — Track orchestration performance and troubleshoot issues