> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.lobyco.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Orchestration canvas
> Build an automated journey on the orchestration canvas — start it, connect blocks, save it, and publish it to run.
The orchestration canvas is where you build the journey a campaign runs: what starts it, who it targets, and what happens to them. Read on for the seven steps that take a journey from an empty canvas to a published one.
A journey lives inside a campaign — there is no canvas outside one. The portal's own dialogs sometimes call the same thing a *flow*; it is the diagram on the canvas either way.
## Step 1: Open the canvas
Two ways in, both from the **Campaigns** section of the left menu.
**From the campaign list.** Go to **Campaigns → List**, then open an existing campaign or select **New campaign**. A new campaign opens on **Start building your campaign**, where **Start Orchestration** takes you to the canvas. Creating one is covered on [Create a campaign](/business-documentation/campaigns/create-a-campaign).
**From Orchestration.** Go to **Campaigns → Orchestration**. Under **Start orchestrating your journey** there are two cards:
* **Empty canvas** — *"Start with an empty canvas and build a custom journey"*. It asks for the campaign's details in a dialog first, then drops you onto the canvas.
* **From existing campaign** — opens a **Select Campaign** dialog and takes you to that campaign's canvas.
**There is no journey template to start from.** Every canvas starts empty, and the empty state says as much: *Drag in your first block*. What can be reused is smaller — saved segment definitions from the **Use templates** panel (Step 3), and saved activities, covered on [Reuse with templates](/business-documentation/campaigns/reuse-with-templates).
**Permissions** is not set on the canvas. Who else can open and edit the campaign is a field on the campaign form, shown only where department-based access is switched on — the four access levels are on [Create a campaign](/business-documentation/campaigns/create-a-campaign). The canvas only reports the level, read-only, in the information line above the diagram.
**Where:** Campaigns → **Orchestration** → **Empty canvas**
**Must show:** The empty canvas alongside the open **Block library**, with the library's five groups visible.
**Why this shot:** The reader needs to see the two halves of the screen — library on one side, canvas on the other — before any instruction about dragging blocks makes sense.
*Placeholder — replace with the image once captured. 1440px, light theme, test data only.*
**Orchestration** is one of three views, alongside **List** and **Calendar**. The left menu's **Campaigns** section moves you between them, and inside an open campaign the same three sit in a switcher at the top of the screen. Nothing on this page depends on which one you came from.
## Step 2: Decide what starts it
A journey starts from a block that takes nothing in and passes something on. There are two kinds:
* **A trigger** — something that happens fires the journey. In the **Block library**, open the **Trigger** group and add the one that matches — see the [Block reference](/business-documentation/campaigns/block-reference#trigger-blocks) for what each does.
* **An audience block** — not every journey starts with a trigger. One that runs to a schedule has no trigger block at all: it starts from its **Member segment** or **Seed** block, and the schedule is set for the campaign as a whole, below the canvas. See Step 7.
**Only one customer event can be selected today.** The **Customer Event** block says so itself — *"Only one event currently available"*, and *"The Sign up event is currently available for selection."* The single option on the list is **Sign-up**. Check this before designing a journey around any other customer event.
## Step 3: Build the audience
Add the blocks that decide who the journey acts on.
1. From the **Segment** group, add a **Member segment** block to select customers by rules, or a **Seed** block to upload a list.
2. From **Operators**, add any blocks that reshape the result — **Combine**, **Intersect**, **Exclude**, **Split**, or **Enrich** to attach extra data.
**Use templates** is a second panel beside the **Block library**, not a group inside it. It holds **Most used segments** — existing segment definitions you drag onto the canvas instead of writing the rules again.
**Enrich drops customers with no result unless you tell it not to.** Tick **Do not remove member without result** if everyone should continue regardless. Otherwise your audience can shrink at that step with no error shown.
## Step 4: Add what happens
From the **Activity** group, add the blocks that act on the audience — a communication such as **Push** or **Email**, an activity such as **Offer** or **Game**, or a **Channel** block to export the result.
From **Controls**, add **Delay** to hold customers for a period, or **Limit** to cap how many pass a step.
**There are two blocks called Limit.** Use **Limit (new)**. The one marked **Limit (soon deprecated)** still works but opens an older configurator, and both read simply as **Limit** once on the canvas.
## Step 5: Connect the blocks
Drag from one block's output port to the next block's input port. A link only carries what the earlier block passes on, so the order matters — see [What can connect to what](/business-documentation/campaigns/block-reference#what-can-connect-to-what).
Two things to expect while connecting:
* **Some blocks have more than one input, and the labels are load-bearing.** The **Exclude** block's ports read **Include input 1** and **Exclude input 2**; connecting them the wrong way round inverts the result without any warning. Exclude is also built for two or more inputs *per port*, though it only warns you when a port has nothing connected at all.
* **Some blocks cannot be removed.** When you delete a selection, the confirmation lists any blocks that can't be removed from the canvas separately from those that can.
**You cannot connect or disconnect an Activity block while it is Active.** The portal blocks it and explains why: *"In order to connect Activity into the flow, please bring activity back to draft first, then connect it and re-publish it."* Set the activity back to draft, make the connection, then publish it again.
## Step 6: Save the canvas
**Save** sits at the top of the canvas, in the line carrying the campaign's details, and stays disabled until something changes. If you navigate away with changes outstanding, the portal offers **Save and continue** rather than losing them.
Saving is not publishing. A saved canvas still does nothing until Step 7.
## Step 7: Publish and run it
* **Scheduled runs sit below the canvas.** The **Scheduled runs** panel lists the runs set up for the campaign, and **Create new run** opens the dialog that defines one. Until you add one it reads *No runs created yet.* Job types, frequencies and what each kind of run does are covered on [Schedule and run a campaign](/business-documentation/campaigns/schedule-and-run-a-campaign).
* **The Save button runs it now.** **Save** is a split button; its chevron opens **Execute**, **Simulate** and **Count** for a one-off run. **Execute** reads **Save & Execute** while there are unsaved changes. **Execute** and **Count** need a **Member segment** or a **Seed** on the canvas, and **Simulate** needs a **Personal Offer** block as well — without them the item is greyed out and the tooltip says what to add.
* **Past runs are in Executions.** The **Executions** list below the canvas shows what has run and how it ended. Before the first run it reads *There are no executions available*.
Activity blocks inside the journey are published individually, from the activity's own form, and the portal confirms what will happen before it does it: publishing tells you the activity *"will become active now"*, or names the date it becomes active if you scheduled it for later. Unpublishing warns that it *"will be deactivated and new customers will no longer be targeted"* — it stops new targeting rather than undoing what already happened.
## Troubleshooting
### A block I need is missing from the library
Blocks are enabled per setup. If a block described in the [Block reference](/business-documentation/campaigns/block-reference) isn't in your library, it isn't switched on for you — that is configuration, not a fault.
### My audience is smaller than the segment said
Check any **Enrich** block for the **Do not remove member without result** checkbox, and any **Limit** block for a cap that has already been reached.
### I can't connect an activity
It is probably Active. Set it back to draft, connect it, and publish again.
### Changing a Delay affected customers already waiting in it
It does. The portal asks you to confirm and tells you how many customers are currently held in that block. Where the delay is set in days, reducing it to zero releases all of them immediately.
### I deleted a Delay and customers dropped out
Deleting a Delay makes you choose **Delete, send forward** or **Delete, remove from flow**, and warns you when the choice will drop customers — sending them forward drops them if one or more actions downstream is still in Draft. If there is no downstream activity at all you get no choice, and the customers waiting in the block are dropped.
## Related
* [Block reference](/business-documentation/campaigns/block-reference) — every block, what it needs, and what it passes on
* [Create a campaign](/business-documentation/campaigns/create-a-campaign) — the campaign the canvas sits inside, and its Permissions field
* [Schedule and run a campaign](/business-documentation/campaigns/schedule-and-run-a-campaign) — schedules, triggers and executions
* [Find and manage campaigns](/business-documentation/campaigns/find-and-manage-campaigns) — finding, cloning and monitoring campaigns
* [Audiences & Data](/business-documentation/audiences-and-data) — the rules and attributes segments are built from