Journey prerequisites
Scheduled Journeys is available in Accelerator version 26.2.3. Contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM) for more information.
Overview​
Before you can create or activate a journey in Accelerator, several infrastructure components must be in place. This article maps out every prerequisite, who is responsible for configuring it, and where to find the detailed setup instructions.
All prerequisite setup requires the System Admin role, with the exception of audience creation, which requires the appropriate Audience role. Journey Author role users cannot configure the items listed here.
Prerequisites at a glance​
| Prerequisite | Configured by | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Native database connection with Managed data schema and User profile purpose tags | System admin or Data admin | Admin → Data → Database connections |
| Managed Data Schema (journey state tracking schema) | System admin | Admin → Data → Managed Data Schema |
| User Profile (at least one) | System admin | Admin → Data → User Profiles |
| Managed Events (optional for conversion tracking) Event Syncs (optional for conversion tracking) | System admin | Admin → Data → Managed Events Admin → Data → Event Syncs |
| Journey builder role assigned to journey users | System admin | Admin → Users and Accounts → Users |
| Audience with RecipientId column | Segment builder | People → Audiences |
A unified data warehouse​
All components that a journey uses must share the same database connection in the instance. Specifically:
- The Audience used for journey entry
- The User Profile selected at the entry tile
- The Managed Data Schema that auto-creates and manages Journey state tables
When you configure a journey, MessageGears enforces this constraint automatically — it filters available Audiences and User Profiles to those that share the same database connection as the Managed Data Schema.
Plan your data architecture around this single database connection before you begin. If your audience data and user profile attributes live in separate warehouse connections, you will need to consolidate them before they can be used together in a journey.
Journeys supports native warehouse connections only. JDBC connections are not supported. Confirm that your database connections use native connection types before beginning setup.
Step 1: Configure Managed Data Schema​
This is a one-time setup performed by your system admin and database administrator
Managed Data Schema must be configured before any other journey prerequisite. The user profile creation page is disabled until a valid Managed Data Schema exists, and journey activation is blocked without a Journey State Table to write to.
Managed Data Schema configuration requires:
- A database user in your warehouse with read and write permissions on the designated schema
- The schema must exist in your data warehouse before Accelerator can write the Journey State Table to it
- A native warehouse connection established in Accelerator with the purpose tag of Managed data schema
For full setup instructions, see the Managed data schema documentation.
Step 2: Create at least one user profile​
A user profile defines the customer attribute dictionary available inside journey tiles. At least one user profile must exist before you can configure a journey entry node.
User profile setup requires:
- A valid Managed Data Schema configuration (Step 1 must be complete)
- The same database connection on the same warehouse as your Managed Data Schema and Audience
- The database connection with a purpose tag of User profile
- A SQL query that returns at minimum a RecipientId column
- Column mappings for any channel identifiers you plan to use: Email address, SMS address, Mobile user Id(s)
- Customer attributes needed for segmentation, filtering, and message personalization throughout the journey.
For full setup instructions, see User profiles.
Step 3: Configure Managed Events for journey conversion tracking​
Journey conversion tracking is optional.
Journeys support up to two conversion events as journey goals. These events surface in the journey canvas performance panel and in the activation analytics modal. Managed Events must be configured before you can select goal events when building a journey.
Managed Events setup for journey goals requires:
- The events you want to use as journey goals must exist in the Managed Events list and be enabled for conversion tracking
- If the events do not yet appear in Managed Events, you can add them manually or wait for them to appear from an Event Sync
If you do not configure Managed Events before creating your journey, you can still create and activate the journey — you simply will not have conversion event data in journey analytics until events are configured.
For information about Managed Events and Event Syncs, see the Event setup for conversion reporting documentation.
Step 4: Assign the Journey builder role to journey users​
Users who will build, edit, activate, or view journeys must be assigned the Journey builder role with the appropriate permission tier.
| Permission tier | Recommended for |
|---|---|
| Read Only | Stakeholders who need to review journey performance without making changes |
| Standard | Marketers who build, edit, and activate journeys |
| Admin | Power users who need to delete journeys in addition to all Standard actions |
For a full breakdown of what each tier can do, see Journey roles in the User roles documentation.
Role assignment is done by a system administrator in Admin → Users and Accounts → Users.
Step 5: Confirm your audience is designed for the journey​
Audiences are what determine who enters the Journey, and should filter and return only customers qualified for entry.
Journeys require the entry audience to include a RecipientId or unique customer ID column. This is how the process identifies and deduplicates users entering the journey, and how it joins audience members to their user profile rows throughout the flow.
Journey audiences do not need to return additional customer attributes. These belong in the User Profile.
If your existing audiences do not include a RecipientId column, update the audience query or create a new audience before creating your journey. Accelerator filters the audience selector in the journey entry configuration to show only audiences that meet this requirement.
The audience must also use the same database connection as the User Profile and Managed Data Schema.
For information about data requirements for Audiences and User Profiles, see Audience data and User Profile data.
When prerequisites are complete​
Once all prerequisites are in place, journey users with a Standard or Admin Journey Author tier can navigate to Campaigns → Journeys and create their first journey.
For a full walkthrough of creating and configuring a journey, see Create a journey.