Understanding ‘Actions’ on the eko Platform

A summary detailing "Actions" & "Conditions"

OVERVIEW 

Eko customer experiences (or projects) are created by utilizing blocks. When using a template, 

communication between eko blocks occurs utilizing an “Actions” based system. Actions have two states: always (which is inherent) & conditional (meaning when certain “conditions” or “criteria” are met the action will then be executed). 

Actions within a block are executed “after” a block ends and not at the beginning of the block. With that, at the beginning of a project start logic can be defined, these are settings that apply to the start of a project 

Actions:

How many actions are there per block?

A block can have various action types depending on the blocks predefined functionality 

The top level “parent” actions are defined as the following: 

• Play Action 
• Set Contact Field 
• Product Filtering
• Set Score 
• Increment Score
• Decrement Score 

Note: Blocks can have more than six actions in cases where conditional actions are added to the parent action

Play Action	Defines what blocks plays next  (if certain condition(s) are met)
Set Contact Field	Sets a property field for a contact in your CRM or lead generation capture software
Product filtering	Add a filter to apply to products in your stores inventory  (requires connection to product inventory)
Set Scoring	Sets the score to a new value
Increment Score	Increments the score by a fixed amount
Decrement	Decrease the score by a fixed amount

By default their state is set to  “Always”, which means that the action always happens inherently 

Conditional Actions: 

What are “conditions” and what does it mean when using Actions?

Video overview by eko product manager: Keren Lipski    

A conditional action occurs when the user toggles the “condition” slider to on

 

Notice the +Add button will now be available in order to allow you to add new condition 

Note: if the user sets the action to be conditional action (slides the toggle to the on position) , but leaves the condition empty,  the behavior of the action will retain its  “always” behavior. 

The available conditional actions are the following:

• Block Conditional actions 
• URL parameters 
• Score 

Block Conditional Actions	Choice block conditional actions: Current [the block currently being edited]] Previous block [a callback to choice made in a preceding block]  Sequential [plays the next user defined block sequence]   In the example above: IF the user clicks on the “Option 1” button,  the Play action will play “Choice 2” Block (see screen grab below)
	Email sign up block State: Submitted/not submitted (Boolean)
	Definitions: Submitted = The email block has successfully been submitted by the end user Not Submitted = means that the end user opted to not fill out and submit the form, opting to skip this block
URL parameters	Parameters that you can add onto your url string in order to segment or track a unique instance of your project
Score	Relating to the “state” increment or decrement of a Score (variable)

If a condition is met a specified action will occur as a result. In the example below, the user is initiating a Filter Products Action, the Conditional is set to on. The user is filtering their product inventory by color (blue) & by type (pants) using product tags

If pants are selected in the current block, Choice 3, then the Product list block will play next displaying blue pants in the user's store inventory.   

Of note: Conditional actions can utilize  IF, AND or OR statement(s), which enable you to create more complex logic for your specific project needs.  

Attention! If the user toggles the condition slider to the off position, all of the users conditional actions will be erased (even if  they toggle the slider back to the on position.)  

Hierarchy (IMPORTANT):

Actions get evaluated by their sort order in the action panel

Order matters! To ensure that an action is applied properly and ranked by importance, it has to have the correct priority in the hierarchical order! 

In the example above swapping the order of the “Play Actions” could impact the flow of your desired logic so be mindful!

How do I access the actions modal in my project? 

1. You can access logic by hovering over a specific block in the tree view and clicking on “Actions”
2. From within the block itself while editing by clicking on the “Actions” button to the right of the “Settings” button

 

Start logic:

When the user selects a template and creates a new project, there are Actions that are applied at the beginning of the project. 

To access and modify them double click the “Start” button symbol on the top of the tree flow or click on “Actions” in the tooltip menu:

  

By default every template will have a play action that defines the “head block”, which is the block that is the block that plays first. This is denoted by a “Ticker” symbol (see below):

If there are multiple blocks available, the user has the ability to “choose” the head block from the list of blocks available within the project

A user can define multiple head blocks by defining a condition in the play action. All of the types actions can be defined in the beginning of the project

Attention! If a head block is not defined, the project will not load.