Responsys Concepts
If you are not familiar with Responsys and its Program orchestration model, review this section before you begin developing for Responsys. If you are already familar with the Oracle Marketing product, you can skip to App Installation and Setup.
Program Workflow and Activity Stages
A Responsys Program workflow enables marketers to coordinate complex marketing campaigns across different channels in a simple, visual manner. On the Program canvas, marketers create workflows that provide highly personalized digital experiences for their customers. For example, the marketer may wish to send customers a message by email or SMS, depending on how the customer has opted in to receive communication from the company.
A Program Workflow comprises Events, Activities, and Switches, each of which are represented by a workflow stage icon available from the Program palette.
- Event: Something that happens, such as a customer completing a purchase. Displayed on the Program canvas as orange circle icons.
- Activity: Something that gets done, such as an email or SMS message being sent, or an app action sending or receiving enactment data. Displayed on the Program canvas as purple square icons.
- Switch: A decision point in the process, such as determining a customer’s Opt-in status in order to send them a campaign through the proper channel. Displayed on the Program canvas as grey diamond icons.
Enactments
An enactment is a representation of a contact within a Responsys Program workflow. For example, when a customer makes a purchase, the customer’s contact information is pulled into the program and is represented as an enactment. This enactment moves through the Program workflow. Enactments can be considered in-memory and are not committed to the Responsys database until explicitly instructed. A contact can have multiple enactments within a single orchestration workflow. Though each enactment represents the same contact, each enactment is unique within the workflow.
Entry Tracking Variables
Entry Tracking Variables (sometimes referred to as Program Variables or Enactment Variables) enable marketers to update information about an enactment while it is in the Program workflow. Entry Tracking Variables can be used in workflows so that Data Switches can make decisions and route the enactments accordingly. Entry Tracking Variables are local to the specific Program canvas. Another program cannot access the Entry Tracking Variables for an enactment in a different workflow. Entry Tracking Variables are local to the specific enactment in the program workflow. There can be multiple enactments for the same contact, but each will have its own set of values for their Entry Tracking Variables.
These variables are different from contact record fields in the Profile Table or the Profile Extension Table (PET), because Program Variables only exist in the program workflow. An Entry Tracking Variable is defined by the marketer when the marketer designs the program; for example, the marketer may define a Product SKU variable from a cart abandonment. It is populated at program runtime when the enactment enters the workflow. Once an enactment has completed the workflow, the Program Variable is thrown away.
Responsys Personalization Language (RPL)
Responsys Personalization Language is the language used for generating text output based on templates. RPL is designed to generate HTML and Text for email, web and other uses.
Although RPL has many programming capabilities, it is not a full-blown programming language like PHP or Java. It is implemented to work only from within the Interact Suite. Other than that, you can accomplish many programming tasks using this language.