Event Rules vs. Flows
Weave has two ways to automate your loyalty program: event rules and flows. Both react to customer activity, but they solve different problems. This guide helps you pick the right one before you start building.
The short answer
| Event rule | Flow | |
|---|---|---|
| Use it when | One event should trigger one action, right away, every time it happens. | A customer, group or audience should follow a journey of several steps, with waits and branches. |
| Shape | One trigger, one set of actions. | A versioned, multi-step journey: steps connected into a graph. |
| Remembers progress | No. Each event is handled on its own. | Yes. Each customer's place in the journey is tracked until they finish. |
| Waits | No. Actions happen when the event arrives. | Yes. A step can wait for a set time or for another event. |
| Branches | No. | Yes. A step can check a condition and take a Yes or No path. |
| Who it targets | The customer the event belongs to. | A customer, a customer group or an audience. |
Examples
Event rules
- Award 1 point per dollar on every purchase.
- Give double points on in-store purchases made at the weekend.
Flows
- Welcome series: issue a welcome offer, wait 7 days, then give bonus points if they haven't purchased yet.
- Win-back: issue an offer to a lapsed audience, wait up to 14 days for a purchase, and branch on whether one arrives.
Decision guide
Answer these questions in order. The first Yes decides.
- Does anything need to happen later than the event itself? For example, "wait 7 days", or "wait until they purchase". If yes, use a flow.
- Does what happens next depend on what the customer did after the first step? If yes, use a flow.
- Are you starting a journey for a group or an audience, rather than reacting to one customer's event? If yes, use a flow.
- Otherwise, use an event rule. One event, one immediate action, is what event rules are built for, and they are simpler to set up and test.
If you find yourself creating several event rules that only make sense together, such as one rule to issue an offer and another to reward the customer if they use it, that is a sign the work belongs in a single flow.
Where to create them
In the Hub, open Event Rules or Flows and select Create Event Rule or Create Flow to go straight to that editor.
If you're not sure which one you need, use the Create Rule or Flow quick action. It gives you two ways in:
- Describe it. Type what you want, such as "give 200 bonus points to customers who just lapsed", and select Draft it. Weave AI decides whether it's an event rule or a flow, tells you why, and drafts it with a name and code. Select Open in editor on the draft:
- An event rule opens in the create sheet with its trigger, conditions and rewards filled in.
- A flow opens on the canvas with its steps in place, behind a small dialog with its name, code and trigger. Select Create flow to save it and its steps, then keep editing in the builder.
- Start one yourself. Select Create event rule or Create flow to open an empty editor.
Nothing is saved until you create it in the editor. If the draft refers to something that doesn't exist yet, such as an offer, the draft lists it and leaves that part for you to fill in.
When you describe a group of customers that you already have as an audience, Weave AI reuses that audience. Some audiences, such as the lifecycle stages, look at a customer's history, so a rule can't check them on another event. Instead, the rule runs when a customer joins the audience. That needs Trigger on enter turned on for the audience, and the draft tells you when it's off.
Goals such as "buy 5 coffees, get 1 free" or "10 visits" use a counter target. Weave AI reuses a matching target when you have one. Otherwise the draft lists the target it will create, and the Hub opens that target, filled in, before the editor so you can check it and create it. Each purchase then counts toward the target. Rewarding the customer when they reach it is a second rule, which the draft offers to write with Draft the reward rule.
For the editors themselves, see Event Rules and Flows.
Campaigns are now flows
Flows replace the earlier Campaigns feature. If you used campaigns before, build those journeys as flows.