Bulk distribution enables you to select and easily distribute multiple Automation and Interactions programs from one account to another with just one click.
For more information on the Bulk Distribution of Automation Programs, watch the June 2024 Product Release video:
Use cases
Multiple program distribution may come in handy in the following cases:
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Workflow optimization: You do not have to create new Automation programs from scratch or to distribute and populate the content one by one in another account. You can recreate up to 15 Automation programs in another account at once.
For example, if you have a central team responsible for the marketing content creation, they can easily share these assets with the teams and business units responsible for the local execution of marketing strategy, campaigns. - Bring new accounts up to speed: If you open a new SAP Emarsys account, you can populate it with both your Automation, Interactions programs and any resources, for example: campaigns, segment descriptions, that are included in those programs.
Distributing multiple programs to another account
Here is what you need to do to distribute a copy of multiple Automation programs to another account:
- Go to the Automation>Automation Programs page and select multiple programs that you would like to distribute. Click Distribute Selected.
- Configure the following settings as required:
- Target Account: A copy of the selected programs will be distributed to the chosen account.
Only the target accounts your user is authorized to access are available in the dropdown.
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Distribution with or without sub-resources: You can choose to either include or exclude sub-resources for distribution.
For example, you can choose to distribute
- only the logic of the program without any of the campaigns included, or
- you can choose to distribute both.
It supports both Automations and Interactions programs, but you can either choose all sub-resources or none.
It is not supported to select only specific sub-resources to be distributed.
- Edit the selection of program sets before launching: You can deselect programs within the flow before initiating the distribution, without going back to the overview page.
- Open the program in a new tab: You can check and open programs before and after distribution so you can make modifications easier.
- Target mobile application: The mobile application that will be used on the selected account.
This field is only displayed if your program uses Mobile Engage campaigns or segments.
If there is no active mobile application on the selected account, then the Mobile Engage campaigns or segments will not be distributed.
- Review errors: You can review the error links to the programs that are currently blocked for distribution.
Even if errors persist, you can still launch the distribution by excluding the programs with errors.
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Define the mobile application used in the Automations program.
If your Automation programs include mobile applications, define which mobile applications in your target account can be used in the distributed programs. You can set these by clicking on the Resolve dependences button.
- Select the mobile applications in your target account that can replace the mobile applications used in the programs in the source account.
- When you are ready, click Launch Distribution.
Assets that cannot be distributed
Some assets cannot be distributed, for example:
- Relational segments or API nodes. Such resources will not be available in the distributed program on the target account. To check if there are errors, open the distributed program.
- You cannot distribute assets if any ESL statements are used across different Visual Content Editor (VCE) blocks within an email. The opening and closing ESL statements must exist within a single VCE content block for this feature to work.
Non-existing custom fields are not blockers for distribution: If a custom field involved in the Automation programs does not exist in the target account, it will be created in the target account once the distribution is completed.
If the program you would like to distribute contains custom fields (e.g. contact segment or VCE block targeting) that have the same ID, but a different type on the target account, then you cannot distribute the program. In this case, the following error message will be displayed along with details of the custom fields causing the issue:
This program cannot be distributed because of the following errors:
To resolve this issue, you need to:
- Modify the fields type as required on the Management > Field Editor page on the target account.
We recommend that you contact the Account Owner in the following cases:
- If you do not have the required permissions to edit custom fields,
- Before modifying fields type because it might lead to issues in other segments.
Program distribution can take some time, but you can navigate away while it is processing.
Once the distribution is completed you are notified on the source and the target account as well.
- Report page: After distribution, a detailed report page is available where you can check details of the distribution process and the page helps you troubleshoot any possible issues.
- Check your program and the selected campaigns before activating it.
- When your program is ready, activate it.
Limitations
- Currently, up to 15 program distributions can be initiated. For the full list of supported assets and limitations, see Supported assets.
- Programs containing more than 50 segments may result in distribution failure. To avoid this issue, we recommend distributing only the program framework without any subresources, and then adding the segments to the program on the target account before the program has been activated.