To avoid sending irrelevant messages, you can configure the time period after which events will expire and they will not trigger Interactions programs. Although events will not trigger your programs after the specified interval, Emarsys will store them, so they can still be used in the Event happened and Event did not happen templates of the Decision and Decision splitter nodes.
You can configure the trigger event timeout value in the Interactions entry nodes. This setting will prevent expired events from triggering your program by analyzing the times passed between the following occurrences:
- When was the event triggered? (i.e. the timestamp of the event)
- When did it arrive at the first channel node?
When the event arrives at a Wait node, then the trigger event timeout value is reset to 6 hours.
The trigger event timeout setting takes the following fields into account:
- Mobile events:
event_timestamp
(Emarsys adds this field to the event) - Web Extend events:
event_time
(Emarsys adds this field to the event) - External events:
event_time
- Wishlist events:
event_time
- Pub/Sub events:
event_time
Trigger event timeout examples
We have collected a few cases which demonstrate when trigger events may arrive with a significant delay:
- Mobile events generated during offline activity,
- External events coming through the API or Pub/Sub connector - delays might occur on your side,
- Delays caused by the rate limit,
- In the unlikely event of:
- a delay in the internal Web Extend streams in Emarsys when you would like to send real-time messages based on Web Extend,
- Interactions system outages.
Configuring the trigger event timeout
To set up the trigger event timeout value, proceed as follows:
1. Double-click the entry node.
2. Choose a trigger event if you have not selected one already.
3. Choose a trigger event timeout option.
You can choose from the following options:
- Disable timeout - Choose this option if you would like to make sure that essential operational messages reach your contacts regardless of the delay.
In this case, Interactions ensures that the event completes the journey even after a substantial delay or in the unlikely event of a system outage.
- Set a custom trigger event timeout - Choose this option if you would like to set your own custom trigger event timeout value to ensure that you send contextually relevant messages.
The specified value should be between 1 minute and 24 hours.
The selected custom trigger event timeout value is applied until the event arrives at the first Wait node. After reaching that Wait node, the timeout value is set to 6 hours. If the event cannot travel from the first Wait node to the Finish node or a second Wait node in 6 hours, then it will be excluded from the program. This is only relevant in the unlikely event of system outages.
You can see how the custom trigger event timeout setting works in the following example:
- The custom trigger event timeout is set to 2 minutes, which means that after the event happened, it has to reach a channel node in 2 minutes.
- After reaching the first Wait node, the trigger event timeout is set to 6 hours.
Optional event_time attribute for external API events
Add the event_time
attribute to your events to use the trigger event timeout feature for External events sent through the API. With this attribute, Emarsys can precisely determine the date and time when an event was triggered. If you do not add this attribute to your events, then we can only assign the date when they arrive at the API endpoint (and they are processed) to the events.
For more information on the event_time
attribute, see New parameter.