Appendix

This appendix outlines the contents of the Scheduling and Follow-Up tutorial and provides some links to more in-depth documentation. Return to this document any time you want to review:

• Digital scheduling

• Timers and reminders

• Automatic outreach and TCPA compliance

• Creating and managing multi-Step Journeys

Airkit Studio

• Journey Builder

• Web Flows Builder

• AirData Builder

• Connections Builder

• Schedules Builder

• Notifications Builder

• Variable Tree

Digital Scheduling

• Appointments are made via the Scheduler Web Control, which must be associated with a Schedule Object and an Availability Schedule.

  • Schedule Objects are defined in AirData.

  • Availability Schedules are defined in Schedules Builder.

• Selecting an appointment time in a Scheduler Web Control automatically saves the relevant information to the associated Schedule Object, but if you want to save the appointment information locally, you will need to use the Set Variable Action within the Scheduler's Control Event to define a local variable as event.value.

  • Local variables are defined and managed in the Variable Tree.

  • Working comfortably with appointment information requires familiarity with the DateTime data type as well as Airscript. Some useful Airscript functions include:

    • FORMAT_DATETIME

    • SUBTRACT_FROM_DATETIME

    • ADD_TO_DATETIME

Timers and Reminders

• Actions can be associated with a timer by nesting them under the Start Timer Action in any Action Builder.

  • To send reminders, it is common to nest a Send SMS Action under the Start Timer Action.

    • SMS Notifications that can be sent through this Action are defined in Notifications Builder.

• Timers can be canceled using the Stop Timer Action.

Automatic Outreach and TCPA Compliance

The Actor must be initialized before outgoing messages can be sent.

• Initializing the Actor with set values for different variables in the Actor namespace influences the behavior of outgoing messages in different ways.

  • An appropriate value for actor.phone must be set to send SMS Notifications.

  • An appropriate value for actor.email must be set to send Email Notifications.

  • An appropriate value for actor.calendar_restriction must be set for Notifications send from a Journey Step to be TCPA compliant.

    • If appropriate values have been set for actor.region and actor.timezone, the correct value for actor.calendar_restriction will be generated automatically.

• Values for variables in the Actor namespace are set via the Set Variable Action. The Actor is initialized via the Initialize Actor Action.

Assuming the Actor is initialized properly, all Notifications sent from a Journey Step will be TCPA complaint. Enforcing TCPA-compliance while scheduling a Notification within an Action Chain, however, requires the calendar restriction be set manually.

To remain TCPA compliant, the Send SMS Action must be nested under a Start Timer Action. While setting the timer, under Which Availability Schedule > Custom Expression, you will need to define an Availability Schedule Key that looks something like this:

"TCPA-{{actor.region}}-{{actor.time_zone}}"

This string is an Availability Schedule Key that references an out-of-the-box Availability Schedule, encompassing all times that TCPA allows messages to be sent given a particular region and timezone, assuming assumes actor. region describes the user's region by its State/Province Abbreviation Key and actor.region describes the users timezone by its TZ database name.

For more on TCPA compliance, see TCPA.

Creating and Managing Multi-Step Journeys

• Steps are subsections of an application flow.

• Each Step must begin with a new Web Flow, but Web Flows and Journey Steps are distinctly different things.

  • Journey Steps can contain any number of Web Flows.

Web Flows are typically built around a specific purpose, such as filling out an individual form or making a single appointment. Meanwhile, Journey Steps conceptualize a broader perspective focused on funnel milestones.

In multi-Step Journeys, users are guided from one Step to another using the Go to Next Journey Step Action.