Getting started

Customer Journeys can be linked to any of the apps you have in your Pushwoosh Control Panel. Communications may be performed across all apps or within a single app. For example, a user triggers an Event in one app, and then you send them a push notification from another app to encourage their interaction with that other app. Or, in other cases, you can follow up the Event triggered in an app with some message from the same app to strengthen in-app engagement.

You can use any of the apps configured in your Pushwoosh Control Panel with Pushwoosh SDK integrated. If you don't have apps yet or need a new one to link to a journey, create an app in your Pushwoosh account.

Here are the steps to follow before you start creating journeys:

1. Create an app (if necessary)

To create a new app, press the Applications link on the left side menu of the Customer Journey dashboard. You'll be redirected to your Pushwoosh account's Applications section; here, press Add new.

2. Select project type

Choose an appropriate project type — Mobile Push project, Web Push project, or Email project. Each of these project types has its own purposes and capabilities; each project is configured with platform-specific credentials and is used for communications through a particular channel:

• Mobile Push — for iOS and Android apps,

• Web Push — for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari,

• Email — for email messaging.

3. Configure project

• To configure mobile platforms, follow the iOS configuration and Android configuration guides.

• To configure a web project, first, enter your site URL and project name. Configure Chrome and Firefox with Firebase Cloud Messaging credentials, then configure Safari if necessary.

• To configure an email project, verify your email address and domain by following the Email configuration guide.

4. Integrate SDK

Make sure you've integrated the appropriate SDK into your app or website:

• ​iOS SDK​

• ​Android SDK​

• ​Web Push SDK 3.0​

5. Subscribe users

Provide users can subscribe to your app's or site's notifications — otherwise, you won't be able to send them pushes and emails.

Push subscribers

To register users for pushes, use the registerDevice API method.

To let users opt-in for push notifications, use the Subscription Prompt — a handy tool to manage subscriptions and encourage users to subscribe.

To migrate the existing mobile user base to a newly created or any other app, please apply to our Customer Support team as described in the article.

Email subscribers

To collect users' email addresses, define where and when it's appropriate (for example, on the app login page) and use the registerEmail or registerEmailUser API method.

To associate your app users or site visitors with their email addresses, use the User IDs. That allows you to build cross-channel Customer Journeys and send emails based on user's actions in your app or on the website.

1. Get the User ID.

Each device registered for your Pushwoosh project has its User ID; by default, it's equal to the device hardware ID (HWID) and is retrieved by the registerDevice API request.

To set a custom User ID, call the registerUser method.

2. Assign the User ID to an email address.

Use the registerEmail or registerEmailUser API method to associate the User ID with an email address.

3. That’s it!

The same User ID is assigned to a particular device and a specified email address. That means Pushwoosh considers both app user and email addressee the same person so you can reach out to them by pushes and emails within a cross-channel Customer Journey.

6. Prepare your project

Make sure you have all required Events, Presets, Filters, and Email Templates prepared for the app you're going to use in a Customer Journey.

Events generally are some actions users perform in the app or on the website. They are recorded by Pushwoosh SDK and can trigger various behavior-based communications. Each Event you've integrated into your project and configured in Pushwoosh Control Panel can be used in your Customer Journey as an entry point, decision splitter, or journey effectiveness tracker.

Read more on Events: https://docs.pushwoosh.com/platform-docs/automation/behavior-based-messaging/events​

Push Presets are fully configured push messages just waiting to be sent. Creating Push Presets, you don't have to enter push content each time you're going to send a message — simply select the preset from the list, and here we go.

Email Presets are the obligatory prerequisites for using emails in Customer Journeys. To create an Email Preset, prepare an Email Template first, then save a Preset configured with a subject line and "From" email address.

Learn more about Presets: https://docs.pushwoosh.com/platform-docs/automation/presets​

Filters are used to split journeys into branches as well as to start journey with a segment of users. Filters are compilations of tags and their values which form user segments. Using Filters, you can target specific users with specific messages increasing communication relevance and thus boosting open rates.

Explore Tags and Filters: https://docs.pushwoosh.com/platform-docs/segmentation/tags-and-filters​

Rich Media are rich content pages deeply customizable to the needs of your business and specifics of your app. There are some default Rich Media templates in every Pushwoosh account so you can customize their appearance and content or, if needed, create your own templates.

Rich Media is required to show In-Apps to your app users.

7. Check everything's ok

Once everything's set up, check whether it works as supposed to. There are several options to test sending messages to your app or site subscribers:

• Register your device as a test one and send push messages to test devices only: https://docs.pushwoosh.com/platform-docs/segmentation/test-devices​

• Target your device by HWID, push token, or userID using the API createMessage request: https://docs.pushwoosh.com/platform-docs/api-reference/messages#createmessage​

• Assign a unique Tag value to your device, create a Filter using this Tag value, and use it in your test messaging: https://docs.pushwoosh.com/platform-docs/segmentation/tags-and-filters​

To test email configuration, enter an email address you'd like to send a message to on the Audience tab of the Send Email section in your Control Panel.