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Getting started

What is Wave?

WAVE is a customer intelligence and automation platform. It collects events from your product — anything your users do, like completing a purchase, signing in, or going dormant — and uses them to automatically understand each customer and communicate with them at the right moment.

Unlike a broadcast email tool, WAVE tracks individual customer behaviour over time. Every event a customer generates updates their profile in real time — their metrics, their classification labels, and which segments they belong to. Journeys and campaigns then use this live intelligence to decide who to message, when, and what to say.

The result: you send fewer, more relevant messages — and every message WAVE sends is backed by a permanent evidence record that explains exactly why it was sent.

How data gets in

Events arrive from your product via the WAVE REST API or SDK. Your engineering team handles this once during onboarding. Once the integration is live, everything in the dashboard updates automatically as your customers use the product.

Getting started

Dashboard overview

The sidebar is organised into the following sections.

Audience

Your customers and how they're grouped. Customers (individual profiles + event timeline) and Segments (dynamic groups built from metrics and classifications).

Insight

What customer data means. Metrics (numeric aggregations computed per customer) and Classifications (labels derived from metric thresholds). The insight layer that powers targeting.

Automation

Where you act on intelligence. Journeys (event-triggered flows), Campaigns (one-time broadcasts), Scheduled Events (daily threshold checks), Executions (execution evidence trail).

Data · Analytics · Integrations

Raw material and results. Events (what customers did), Event Catalog (schema registry), Analytics (business impact), Sources / CSV / Webhooks (how data gets in).

The data flow

DATA (Events) → INSIGHT (Metrics, Classifications) → AUDIENCE (Segments) → AUTOMATION (Campaigns, Journeys). You define each layer once; WAVE keeps everything current automatically.

Common tasks

Step-by-step instructions for the most important things you'll do in the dashboard.

1 Build and publish your first journey Automation → Journeys
1 Go to Automation → Journeys and click + New Journey. Give it a clear name — e.g. "Post-Transfer Confirmation" — then click Open in Journey Studio.
2 The canvas opens with a Trigger node already placed. Click it to open the inspector on the right.
3 In the inspector, type an event name in the Event Name field — e.g. transfer_completed. Known events appear in the dropdown grouped as Customer Events and System Events. Click one to select it.
4 Under Entry Filters, click + Add Filter to restrict which events qualify — e.g. amount ≥ 1000000. Known property values appear as suggestions in the value field.
5 Under Entry Conditions, click + Add Condition to add customer intelligence gates — e.g. "only enroll customers classified as VIP". These are evaluated once when the trigger fires.
6 Set Entry Mode: Once to enroll each customer at most once, Once per re-entry window for timed cooldowns, or Always to allow multiple simultaneous runs per customer.
7 Drag a Wait node from the left palette and connect it below the Trigger. Set the delay — e.g. 5 minutes. Skip the Wait node entirely to send immediately.
8 Drag an Action node and connect it below the Wait. In the inspector, choose a channel — Push, Email, WhatsApp, In-App Banner, or Content Card — and write the message. Use {{ customer.name }} or {{ event.amount }} to personalise.
9 Optionally drag a Goal node and connect it to define a success condition — e.g. "customer fires transfer_completed again within 7 days". WAVE tracks whether each execution achieved its Goal.
10 Click Publish in the top toolbar. Review the compilation result, add a change note, then confirm. The journey is now live and will start enrolling customers immediately.
The Journey Story panel above the canvas updates as you build — read it to verify the full flow in plain language before publishing.
2 Create a segment Audience → Segments
1 Go to Audience → Segments and click New Segment.
2 Give it a descriptive name that states who is in it — e.g. "VIP Customers — Active This Month".
3 Click Add Criteria to add a rule. Each rule can check a Metric (a number), a Classification (a label), a Customer Attribute (a profile field), or Event History (has or hasn't done X).
4 Under Customers qualify when, choose ALL (AND) to require every condition, or ANY (OR) to require at least one.
5 Save. WAVE evaluates membership immediately and shows the current count. Membership updates automatically as customer intelligence changes — no manual refresh needed.
Segments are re-evaluated at decision time — when a Journey checks entry conditions or a Campaign is about to send — so they always reflect live customer state.
3 Understand a customer's intelligence Audience → Customers → [customer]
1 Go to Audience → Customers and search by name, email, or customer ID.
2 Click the customer to open their profile. The top panel shows their attributes — name, email, phone, and any profile fields.
3 The Customer Intelligence section shows their current Metric values (e.g. total_spend_30d = 1,200,000) and Classification labels (e.g. VIP, High Intent). These recompute on every event.
4 The Timeline shows every event in chronological order — what they did, when, and the event payload. Use the filter tabs to narrow by event type.
If a journey didn't fire for a customer you expected, check their Metric and Classification values here — they may not have met the entry conditions at the moment the event arrived.
4 Investigate a delivery in the Execution Inspector Automation → Executions
1 Go to Automation → Executions. Use the Customer, Journey, Status, and Date range filters to narrow results. Status options: Pending / Sent / Exited (goal reached) / Failed.
2 Click any row to expand the Execution Trace — a step-by-step record of exactly what happened: which event triggered, which conditions were evaluated, which channel was selected, and whether delivery succeeded.
3 The Execution Assurance panel shows the snapshot hash (the exact journey version that ran) and the approval record — proving what version of the journey was in effect.
4 A status of Exited means the customer's goal was already reached before the message fired — the message was intentionally suppressed.
Every execution record is permanent and immutable. It answers "why did this customer get this message?" with full evidence — no engineering involvement required.
5 Send a campaign to a segment Automation → Campaigns
1 Go to Automation → Campaigns and click New Campaign.
2 In Campaign details, give the campaign a name (internal only) and choose a Channel — Push Notification, Email, WhatsApp, In-App Banner, Content Card, Smart Delivery, or Push + Email.
3 Set Target audience to "A specific segment" or "All customers". If targeting a segment, choose it from the Segment dropdown — membership is evaluated fresh at send time.
4 Fill in the Push Notification or Email Content section with your message title and body.
5 In the Schedule section, set Send at to a future date/time, or leave empty to send immediately. Save and launch.
Campaigns are one-time sends to a static-at-send audience. For ongoing automated responses to customer behaviour, use Journeys instead.
6 Find where customers drop off in a flow Analytics → Funnels
1 Go to Analytics → Funnels and click New Funnel. Give it a name that describes the flow — e.g. "Onboarding Flow".
2 Add 2–5 steps in order. Each step is an event name — e.g. account_created → profile_completed → first_transaction.
3 Set an Entry window (how far back to look for step-1 entries) and a Conversion window (maximum time allowed to complete all steps from step 1).
4 Optionally restrict to a Segment — only customers in that segment are counted in the analysis.
5 Save and open the funnel. The visualisation shows each step's conversion rate and drop-off percentage. The biggest drop-off is where to focus next.
Pair funnels with journeys — identify the highest drop-off step, then build a journey that triggers an automated nudge right after that event.
7 Measure how often customers return Analytics → Cohorts
1 Go to Analytics → Cohorts and click New Cohort. Give it a name — e.g. "Transaction Retention".
2 Set the Entry event — the first action that brings a customer into a cohort period (e.g. first_transaction).
3 Set the Retention event — the action that counts as "returning" in subsequent periods (e.g. transaction_completed).
4 Choose Monthly or Weekly periods and how many periods to show. Save and open the cohort.
5 The heatmap shows each cohort's retention by period. P0 is always 100% (the entry period). Darker cells mean stronger retention. A cell marked — is an incomplete period still accumulating.
Compare cohorts from different time periods to see whether product changes or campaigns improved long-term retention.

Screen reference

What each section of the dashboard is for — at a glance.

Screen What it does Area
Overview Live dashboard — execution counts, active journeys, recent events Overview
Sources Configure how events reach WAVE — SDK, REST API, CSV, webhooks Integrations
Customers Browse all customers; view profiles, metrics, classifications, and event timeline. Also the home for CSV import — use the Download Template button for the correct column format (customer_id, name, email, phone, birthday, then any custom columns). Audience
Events Immutable log of every event ever received — filterable by customer, type, and date Data
Event Catalog Schema registry — every event type, observed properties, health, and journey usage Data
Metrics Define numeric aggregations (sum, count, days-since) computed from event history per customer Insight
Classifications Define classification labels derived from metric thresholds — e.g. VIP / Regular / Dormant Insight
Segments Define dynamic customer groups using any combination of attributes, metrics, and classifications Audience
Journeys Build and publish automated journeys — trigger events, conditions, delays, messages, goals Automation
Campaigns Send one-time broadcasts to a segment — immediately or on a schedule Automation
Scheduled Events Daily threshold checks — e.g. "customers dormant 30 days" — that emit synthetic events into journeys Automation
Executions Full evidence trail — every automated decision with execution trace and assurance record Automation
Analytics Overview — influenced revenue, goal completion, and message delivery per journey Analytics
Funnels Step-by-step conversion analysis — see exactly where customers drop off in a defined sequence of events Analytics
Cohorts Retention heatmap — track what percentage of each entry cohort returned in subsequent calendar periods Analytics

Key concepts

Terms you'll encounter throughout the dashboard.

Event

A timestamped record of something a customer did — transfer_completed, login, purchase. Events are the raw data from which WAVE derives everything else.

Metric

A number computed from a customer's event history — e.g. total spend in the last 30 days or number of logins this week. Metrics recompute every time a relevant event arrives.

Classification

A label derived from one or more metrics using threshold rules — e.g. if total_spend_30d > 5,000,000 → VIP. Classifications appear on customer profiles and can be used in segment rules and journey entry conditions. When a customer's label changes (e.g. Regular → VIP), WAVE emits a classification.changed event — you can use this as a Journey trigger to welcome customers into a new tier.

Segment

A dynamic group of customers defined by a set of conditions. Membership is evaluated live at decision time — when a journey checks entry conditions or a campaign is about to send.

Journey

An automated message flow built on the visual canvas in Journey Studio. A journey defines: a Trigger event (with optional Entry Filters and Entry Conditions), a sequence of Wait and Action nodes, and an optional Goal. Once published, it runs automatically for every qualifying event.

Goal

A success condition defined on a journey. If the customer meets the goal before the delay expires, WAVE exits them without sending the message — because they already achieved the desired outcome on their own.

Execution

A permanent, immutable record of a single automated decision — which customer, which journey version, which step was taken, and what was sent. Executions are evidence, not logs: they cannot be edited or deleted.

Smart Delivery

A channel mode that automatically selects the best delivery method per customer: push notification if an active device token exists, email otherwise. You write one message; WAVE routes it appropriately.