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matthew_lind
matthew_lind
VIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
May 10, 2018
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In Advanced Outreach, are variants mutually exclusive?

  • May 10, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 67 views
Within Advanced Outreach, are variants mutually exclusive?

I understand the original use case for variants was language, and that use case would typically mean variants are mutually-exclusive. I'm arriving at a use case where I may want to notify based on multiple criteria. For example, they are over their contract for two different products. In that case, I'd ideally send two variants from the same Advanced Outreach.

I suspect Variants are mutually-exclusive, and that once a Variant is selected, Advanced Outreach sends the email and no longer queries if there are additional matches making the participant eligible for another message in a different Variant.

I suspect I could remedy by running several Advanced Outreaches, but this isn't ideal as I would like to run a single AO, given that the metrics are pulled from very similar stores. (I also know they'll be some question about sending multiple emails to a single participant at the same time. I'm aware, and given our use case, we're really trying to get someone's attention quickly and we are OK with the risk of the multiple notifications.)
    Best answer by ben
    Hey Matt,

    Yes, they are mutually exclusive. It will actually give you an error if it resolves to two variants. 

    I do have an idea for your use case. Say you have two products you are evaluating for being out of contract and a given customer could own both. You could make three email template variants: one with content about product 1 using filter for contract of product 1, one for with content about product 2 using filter for contract 2, and a third that combines both. You would need to be sure your first two outreaches exclude the product that is still in compliance. 

    We have done a similar process to this for certain feature adoptions to minimize the number of outreaches. It has worked pretty well thus far.

    Hope this helps!

    4 replies

    ben
    benAnswer
    Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
    May 11, 2018
    Hey Matt,

    Yes, they are mutually exclusive. It will actually give you an error if it resolves to two variants. 

    I do have an idea for your use case. Say you have two products you are evaluating for being out of contract and a given customer could own both. You could make three email template variants: one with content about product 1 using filter for contract of product 1, one for with content about product 2 using filter for contract 2, and a third that combines both. You would need to be sure your first two outreaches exclude the product that is still in compliance. 

    We have done a similar process to this for certain feature adoptions to minimize the number of outreaches. It has worked pretty well thus far.

    Hope this helps!
    -Ben
      abhishek_sivaraman
      abhishek_sivaraman
      Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
      May 11, 2018
      Hi Matt,

      Ben is right on this one. The email variants are mutually exclusive. The approach where you solve this via multiple variants - (Product A and not 😎 , (Product B and not A) and both Product A and Product B could solve your use case. Let us know if you face any issues with that approach.

      Thanks
      Abhishek S
        matthew_lind
        matthew_lindAuthor
        VIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
        May 11, 2018
        Thanks for the input. I knew the Community could help!

        I appreciate the suggestion as well, which makes sense. Though I've got a few upcoming puzzles for which I'll get to 3 or even 4 products, which lands me at 8 or 16 variants, which brings its own complications. I'm going to keep studying my situation, and I really appreciate this answer as it helps me know where to head next.

        Thank you all.
        Making people their best....currently disguised as a CS Ops Architect. How can I contribute to your success?
          karl_rumelhart
          karl_rumelhart
          Expert ⭐️
          May 12, 2018
          Great discussion.  I will just add that I think this use case is one that would benefit from embedded tabular reports. (A long time ask.) . You can't easily use Tokens to refer to the relevant products since you don't know how many there are (unless you use the variants approach per Ben, which is awesome but doesn't scale well as you point out, Matt).  Instead, you would say "The following products are out of compliance..." and then embed a list of them built as a tabular report.  
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