Debug Flows

Overview

Marketers often seek information about why a user moved along a particular path in a Flow, where they are in the Flow currently, or whether they entered the Flow. With Debug Flows, marketers can understand why a published flow is behaving the way it is.

Debug Flows helps them understand the exact path that users are traversing in a published flow by following the journey of a particular target user. This helps them understand why the engagement for a specific campaign in a Flow wasn’t optimal or helps them understand why a user behaved a certain way.
Debug Flows is a feature that helps a marketer trace a user’s path in a Flow. This helps validate the performance of a published flow, understand whether flow settings and set-up, such as entry criteria, triggers, and scheduling, are configured correctly, and also helps understand drop-off points or conversions within a specific user or cohort.

Using Debug Flows, one can understand the following:

• Why a user did not enter a flow, even after performing a trigger event.
• After entering a flow, why a user did not receive a campaign.
• Once a user has entered the flow - understand the path the user has followed, how the user has engaged with the flow, and where the user has converted or dropped off.

How can you use Debug Flows?

• Understanding why your flow is not performing as per expectations You published a flow; however, viewing your analytics, you realize that the audiences who are receiving the campaign are not the intended audience. Using Debug Flows - you can understand why these audiences were part of the flow and take corrective action accordingly.
• Test the flow for yourself before publishing it for the larger segment/audience You are running a multi-channel customer journey across a large set of audiences. However, before publishing the campaign for the entire segment, you would like to publish it for a smaller set of users (or internal team members) and test it out. With Debug Flows, you can understand the flow performance for the smaller audience set by ‘Shadowing users”, optimize the flow, and accordingly publish the same for a larger audience.
• Debug a flow yourself You have published a flow. However, users are not engaging with the flow as expected. Debug Flows can be used to understand the gaps in the flow setup and make relevant changes.

How does Debug Flows work?

Debug Flows is not available for Fixed Time Flows that is, One-time or Periodic Flows.

To debug a user trip:

1. Navigate to the All Flows Page.
2. Select the required Flow by clicking on it.
3. Navigate to the Debug Flows tab.
4. In the Search user entry search bar, select the user identifier - ID or MoEngageID in the dropdown. For more information, refer to User Identifiers.
5. Specify the ID or MoEngageID of the user for whom you want to debug the user trips.
6. Press Enter. This will populate all the attempts and entries of the user in the Flow for its various versions in the User Entry dropdown.
7. You can specify a date range to select the attempts/entries of the user between a specific timeframe by clicking the (filter icon) and specifying the date range in the date field. The options available are Yesterday, Last Week, Last Month, and Custom Range. Note: You cannot look back at a date range greater than 30 days from the current date for debugging.
8. Select the entry or attempt that you wish to look at in the User Entry dropdown and click Debug.

Terms to Know

Term	Description
Entry	Entry denotes that the user has entered the Flow after meeting the entry condition set for the Flow.
Attempt	Attempt denotes that the user was considered for the Flow but did not enter the Flow as they failed to meet all the parameters set in the entry condition for the Flow. Also, users may not be allowed to enter the Flow even if they meet all the entry conditions if the user entry limit is already met. Note: If a user belongs to the specified target segment for a Event Triggered_Flow_ but does not perform the primary event associated with the trigger condition, they would not be considered for the Flow at all and thus would not have any attempts.
Entry/Attempt Number	Each attempt and entry is labeled entry ‘x’ or attempt ‘x’ depending on the number of times the user qualifies for the flow. For example, Entry 1 is the first time the user entered the flow, and attempt 5 represents the 5th failed attempt of a user to enter the flow.
Status	This field indicates the status of an action tied to the stage or the status of a condition. For example, for a campaign attached to a stage, the status would be sent or not sent depending on whether the campaign was sent to the user successfully or not.
Locale	This field indicates the locale associated with the child campaign of the flow.
Variant	This field indicates the variant of the child campaign that the user has been assigned to in the flow.
Entry	This field indicates the date and time at which the user entered the stage.
Exit	This field indicates the date and time at which the user exited the stage.
Selected Channel	This field indicates the channel selected for Next Best Action.
Evaluation Start Time	This field indicates the time at which the user was evaluated for a particular condition in a flow.
Evaluation End Time	This field indicates the time at which the user evaluation ended for a particular condition in a flow.
Defined Conditions	This field indicates the criteria specified for a condition stage in a flow.
Traversed Branch	This field indicates the branch traversed by the user for an Intelligent Path Optimizer (IPO) or A/B split flow.
Time Zone	This field indicates the time zone chosen when specifying the Wait for/till control. This could either be the App or the User timezone.
Time Slots	This field indicates the time slot chosen for the Wait for/till control. For example, you can choose to move users to the next stage every Monday at 6 PM. This information would be available under the Time Slots field.
Duration	This field indicates the time duration chosen for the Wait for/till control. For example, you can choose to move users to the next stage after ‘x’ hours of arriving at the Wait for/till stage.

Viewing Information About a Stage/Action

To view the information about a stage or action, or condition, click on the stage, and you will get the details about it on the left of the canvas. For example, if there is an email campaign attached to a Flow and user has moved through that stage, you can click on the campaign and see its status, locale, and variant information, along with when the user entered and exited that stage.

Stage	Information Available for when a user enters the stage	Information Available for when a user does not qualify for a stage or when the user does not enter a stage
Campaigns	For every campaign in the Flow, you can view the status, locale, variant, and entry/ exit information.	For a campaign that wasn’t delivered to the user, the entry/exit information and the reason why the campaign wasn’t delivered to the user are shown.
Condition Stage	For a condition stage, you can view the Status, evaluation start time, evaluation ending time, defined conditions, and entry/exit information.	For a condition stage, the information about which condition the user didn’t meet(has done an event or user attribute check or criteria for conditional split) and the entry/exit information will be available.
NBA	For the NBA stage, you can view the status, selected channel, locale, variant, and entry/ exit information.	For an NBA stage, the entry/exit information and the reason why the campaign wasn’t delivered to the user are shown.
Wait Till/For	For a Wait Till/For stage, you can view the time zone and time slots/duration information and entry/exit information.	For a wait till/for stage, entry/exit information would be shown. For example, a user will be dropped at the wait for/till stage if they entered the wait for/till stage after the defined time slot has elapsed. If the time slot defined is May 25th, 2023, at 6:00 PM, and the user enters and arrives at the Wait for/till node on May 28th, 2023, at 4 PM, they will be dropped, and this information will be available.
A/B Split/IPO	For a Flow with AB Split/IPO, you can view the branch that was traversed by the user and the entry/exit information.	For an A/B split or IPO control node, the branch and the entry/exit information of the specific branch that the user dropped off from are shown.
GoTo	For a GoTo condition, you can view the source stage, destination stage, and entry/exit information.	For a GoTo control node, the entry/exit information is shown.

Trip summary

The trip summary section provides information about when the user started the trip and when they exited the flow. The following details are available:

• Trip start - this field indicates when the user entered the flow.
• Trip converted - this field indicates whether the user has converted within the trip or not.
• Trip end - this field indicates when the user exited the flow.
• Trip end reason - this field indicates why the user exited the flow. A user could have exited the flow because of one of the following reasons:

  Trip end reason	Description
  Dropped out due to DND/FC settings	The user exited the flow as the frequency capping limit was exceeded or the communication was attempted to be sent during the DND window for the flow, and the Flow setting is defined to remove the user. Click here to learn more.
  Dropped out due to Technical Exception	The user exited the flow as there were internal system errors.
  Dropped out as Flow was Inactive (Paused/Stopped/Retired)	The user exited the flow as it was paused, stopped, or retired.
  Exited as User converted	The user exited as the conversion goals set for the flow were met.
  User entered post the Waiting period of the Wait Stage	The user exited the flow as they entered after the Wait For/Till time had elapsed.
  Exited via Exit Stage	The user exited the flow as they reached the exit stage.
  Dropped due to user merge	The user was exited from the flow as they were merged into a registered user’s account. For more details, refer to User Merging.

• Trip end stage - this field indicates at which the user exited the flow.

Locate user- This option lets you view where the user is currently in the flow.

Locate trip end stage-This option lets you view where the user exited the flow. Flows typically have numerous nodes, multiple branches, and splits. The _Locate trip end stage_button helps you search for the stage where the user exited the flow without the hassle of manually searching the canvas.

Conversion events

The conversion events section provides information about when the user has achieved the conversion goals set for the flow.