The Scenarios module is a component of the ATG platform that you can use to set up and manage customer scenarios, which are a choreographed series of interactions with your Web site visitors. In a scenario, you anticipate and track the actions of the people who visit your Web site, and you respond appropriately by, for example, tailoring the content of the Web site, offering price promotions, or sending targeted e-mail messages.
The following is an example of a scenario: Your statistics show you that 30 percent of people who register for membership at your Web site never return for a second visit. You decide that you need to improve your record of retaining new members, and you come up with the following plan:
You will send a “Welcome!” e-mail to all new members as soon as they register, thanking them for joining your site and highlighting the services you can provide.
To members who do not return to the site within the next month, you will send an e-mail offering an incentive to return.
You use the Scenarios module to set up a scenario that implements the plan as a series of triggers and responses. You create the scenario by selecting building blocks from lists in the Scenarios area of the ATG Control Center and arranging them like a flow diagram. When it is finished, you have a graphical representation of the entire scenario, which makes it easy to visualize and change as necessary. The following shows a completed scenario:
At the start of a scenario, the system considers all possible subjects (the set of all site visitors, whether currently active or not) for inclusion. As subjects move through the scenario, they encounter building blocks (called elements) that affect their progress in various ways. Some elements prevent the subject from proceeding further until a particular event occurs. Some carry out an action of some kind. Others narrow the set of subjects passing through the scenario by specifying criteria that subjects must meet to proceed.
The elements in a scenario tell the Scenarios module the following:
The group of people to whom you want the scenario to apply;
The events that you want the system to watch for;
The actions you want the system to perform in response;
The data you want the system to collect;
The timing of the scenario. You can use timing elements to define a qualifying window for actions, an amount of time that you want the system to wait at any stage, and the time and date that you want the system to perform a specific action.
Scenario Templates
For scenarios that you will use frequently, you can set up templates. With a template, you can save a scenario and then use it as a pattern to create others. For more information, see Creating Templates for Scenarios.
User Sampling
You can also use scenarios to perform user sampling, in which you test scenarios and other Web site content on different groups of site visitors and then use the results of the test to fine-tune your Web site. For more information, see Performing User Sampling.
