What is a trigger?
A traveller can be added to a journey in four different ways, called triggers.
Every journey must have at least one trigger. When a trigger fires, the traveller is added to the journey and starts at the first action in the workflow. All travellers enter a journey through a trigger.
A single journey can have multiple triggers, allowing travellers to enter the same journey from different sources.
Managing triggers
Triggers are managed in the Journey Builder and always appear at the top of the journey, above the first action.
You can add, edit, or remove triggers at any time. Changes to triggers apply only to new travellers and do not affect travellers already in progress. Trigger changes take effect automatically and do not need to be published.
Trigger types
Journeys can start in the following four ways:
Manually added: A user adds a traveller to the journey directly from the user interface.
Useful for testing or manually starting a journey for a specific traveller.
This trigger type is always available.
External form: A form submission creates a traveller and starts the journey automatically.
Commonly used when journeys are triggered by user input, such as onboarding forms, requests, or confirmations.
Learn more in External forms
Webhook: An external system starts the journey by calling a webhook.
Allows other systems to trigger journeys automatically when something happens outside of journeys.
Learn more in Webhook Triggers
Scheduled polling: The journey checks another system on a schedule and starts travellers when specific criteria are met.
Useful when an external system cannot send webhooks, but can be queried regularly.
Learn more in Scheduled Polling Triggers