Signals Overview

A MetaCX Signal uses an event sourced from a MetaCX Connection to "signal" that an event has occurred. Signals can be related to user activity, product activity, server side activity, or even backend processing, or a specific metric/data update. For a quick overview on how to create a signal, you can watch the video below.

Organizing interactions and data points is extremely difficult, but necessary. MetaCX makes it easy to capture and organize customer activity across all systems and data sources to gain a complete, central view of the customer experience. 

How to Create a Signal

Once data is captured in a MetaCX Connection, the MetaReactor lets you turn raw events into actionable Signals. You can then use Signals to create Metrics, trigger reactions, and so much more. Once the MetaReactor has emitted a Signal, the rest of the platform relies solely on the signal and not the original event.

You create a Signal in the CXReactor. Before you create the Signal, you need the events it is based on to exist in MetaCX, so you must create a Connection to bring them in from one or more event sources. After you create the Signal, you can use it in a Metric.

1. Navigate to the CXReactor. Click the Signals icon in the upper right-hand corner to change to the Signals view if you're not there already.
   
2. Click the Manage Signals button in the lower right-hand corner, and then click Add Signal from the menu
   
   
3. Select a Connection from the list that appears.
   
   
4. Choose the event that you want to base your Signal on and click Use as Signal.
   
   
5. The screen changes at this point to a three-step wizard interface where you define the fields, rules, and reactions of the Signal. The following sections discuss those steps. When you're done, click Save.
   
   

6. Define your signal by choosing which fields from the Connection you're going to use, and indicate which one the platform can use to tie the information from the Signal to a Company.
   
   

7.  Click the key icon to cause the Configure Field as a Key window to appear. By choosing a field here, you are mapping the field coming through the Connection to an ALTKEY, which identifies the Company or Dimension in MetaCX. You can choose to Configure a New Key if the field you want to map to does not yet exist in MetaCX. In that case, you'll need to map the ALTKEY to a MetaKey.

How to Define Rules Within a Signal

In the next step, you configure when the information coming through the Connection merits emitting a signal. Click Rules to get to this step and then click +Add a condition to make the criteria fields appear.

You can choose any field from the Connection that you didn't exclude in the previous step. In the middle field you can choose one of the following operators:

• equals
• not equals
• begins with
• ends with
• does not contain
• is null
• is not null

Finally, in the third field you enter a value.  After you create the first line, you can add additional conditions by clicking the +Add a condition link again. Once you have multiple conditions, you can set whether the rules have an OR or AND relationship, and you can nest the rules.

Once you are finished with the rules and are satisfied with the field configuration overall, you can activate the signal by toggling the activation switch next to the save button. Clicking the save button will save the signal and allow it to be used within a metric build!

How to Edit a Signal

To edit a Signal, just click the Signal that you want to edit from the list on the Signals view of the MetaReactor. Make your changes using the same tools you used to create the Signal originally. Then click Update.

How to Delete a Signal

You can delete a Signal, but you can also deactivate it, if you want to stop using it but not lose the configuration.

1. To deactivate a Signal, open it from the list on the Signals view of the MetaReactor. Toggle the Active switch to Inactive.
   
   
2. To completely delete a Signal, go to the list of Signals on the MetaReactor, click the Manage Signals button and choose Edit Signals from the menu that appears. The screen changes so that each Signals has a check box next to it.
   
   
3. Select the check boxes next to the Signals that you want to delete, and then click the trash can icon in the bottom right-hand corner.