3.3 Action Nodes and the Jump Activity

3.3 Action Nodes and the Jump Activity

Actions produce an outcome; Jump connects orchestration across journeys. They solve different problems and have different runtime behavior.

Built-in channel actions

Journey Optimizer supplies channel actions for configured channels such as email, push, and SMS. The action references a channel configuration, content, and the address or token fields needed for delivery. Before publication, verify consent, suppression, frequency rules, personalization fallback, sender settings, and proof rendering.

A person reaching an action is not guaranteed delivery. They may be discarded because of a missing address, opt-out, suppression, configuration issue, capping, or another eligibility rule. Reporting and discard reasons distinguish arrival at the node from successful channel execution.

Custom actions

A custom action calls an approved external HTTP endpoint. Configuration defines the URL and authentication arrangement, request parameters, and response behavior available to the journey. Use it for an external loyalty service, service case, reservation system, or another operation not supplied as a native channel action.

Treat the endpoint as a production dependency:

• enforce allowed destinations and authentication governance;
• design request payloads from fields available at that point;
• respect Journey Optimizer custom-action throughput;
• protect the destination with appropriate capacity and idempotency;
• understand retries and non-retryable responses;
• avoid placing secrets in authored payloads.

A custom action is not a place to run arbitrary code on the journey canvas.

What Jump actually does

Jump does not transfer control and terminate the origin. When a profile reaches Jump, Journey Optimizer attempts to start that profile in the target journey, and the profile also continues along the origin path after the Jump activity. The result can be parallel participation in both journeys.

This matters for message pressure. If the origin sends an email after Jump and the target also sends an email, both may occur. Add explicit journey design and caps rather than assuming the origin stops.

Target requirements

Origin and target must use the same identity namespace. The target journey must support Jump entry and cannot use an incompatible entry pattern such as Read Audience. Journey Optimizer adds the corresponding Jump-entry representation at the target.

Authoring can show targets in several states, but runtime needs an eligible active target. A draft, closed, stopped, or otherwise unavailable target can produce an execution error. Jump resolves toward the latest eligible version, so version changes must be tested.

Journey Optimizer also protects against loops. You cannot create circular Jump chains that endlessly send profiles among journeys. If the profile is already active in the target, Journey Optimizer skips that target entrance rather than creating another concurrent target execution.

Valid use case

A retailer has a general post-purchase journey and a reusable loyalty-onboarding journey. When a purchaser becomes eligible, Jump can start loyalty onboarding while the post-purchase journey continues with shipment education. Both journeys use the same CRM-ID namespace, and the team reviews channel caps across both.

Jump is less appropriate when the requirement is merely to reuse a few canvas nodes. Current Journey Fragments can copy a bounded set of nodes into a journey, though inserted journey fragments are static copies and do not update when the source fragment changes.

Operational checks

1. Confirm namespace equality.
2. Confirm target entry compatibility and live availability.
3. Trace both the origin continuation and target path.
4. Verify no circular Jump dependency.
5. Test a profile already active in the target.
6. Test target version changes.
7. Review cross-journey frequency and consent.
8. Monitor Jump execution errors in journey reporting.

Action selection

• Native customer communication: built-in channel action.
• External REST service: custom action.
• Start a separate reusable orchestration while continuing the current one: Jump.
• Wait for a future event: Reaction event.
• Reuse authoring content: content fragment, not Jump.
• Reuse canvas nodes as a copy: Journey Fragment, subject to its limitations.

Failure design

Draw the origin and target as two separate timelines. Mark the profile's location after Jump, every message on both paths, and the outcome when the target is unavailable or already contains the profile. Add a stable correlation identifier to custom-action testing. This makes parallel effects, duplicate risk, and target failures visible before a production launch.