Start by giving your Journey a descriptive name that clearly communicates its purpose to your team. Common examples include:

  • Abandoned Cart
  • Welcome Campaign
  • Inactive User Reach Out

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Entry rules

Entry rules define how users can enter your Journey based on their segment membership.

Entry rules for a Journey

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Segments

Use Include Segments and Exclude Segments to control who qualifies for your Journey. Segment checks are done at the subscription level and consider all of a user’s subscriptions. If a user is qualified to enter the Journey but also fits the Exit Rules, they will enter the first step of the Journey before exiting.

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How inclusion and exclusion logic works

  • ✅ If any subscription is in an included segment → the user enters the Journey.
  • ❌ If any subscription is in an excluded segment → the user is blocked entirely.

Journeys evaluate audience eligibility using all of a user’s subscriptions.

To avoid unexpected behavior, always define both included and excluded segments explicitly.

Example:
You’re targeting users inactive for 60+ hours (last_session > 60hrs).

  • Include: Segment where last_session > 60hrs
  • Exclude: Segment where last_session ≤ 60hrs
    This prevents users with one inactive and one active subscription from mistakenly qualifying.

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Future additions only

Segments are dynamic and have users entering and exiting them constantly. Checking this option means any user currently in the included or excluded segment at the time the Journey is set live will never enter the Journey. Even if the user leaves the segment and enters again, they will never enter the Journey.

This is ideal for one-time onboarding campaigns where users should not re-enter after completing the Journey once.

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Exit rules

Exit rules define when users automatically leave the Journey. They may re-enter later based on your re-entry settings.

Journey exit rules.

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Exit when user becomes active in your app/website

As soon as the user returns to your app or website with the OneSignal SDK, their “last session” updates making them active again. Therefore, they exit the Journey.

Useful for re-engagement or reactivation Journeys.

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Exit when user no longer matches the audience conditions

Automatically remove users if they stop matching the original segment filters. Best for behavior-based targeting.

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Exit when a user enters a segment

If a user enters a selected segment at any point, they are removed from the Journey and stop receiving messages.

If they are already in the segment when they enter the Journey, they will complete only the first step and be marked as “Exited Early.” Use a Wait step as the first step to prevent any messages from being sent.

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Tag users when they exit early

Tag User on Early Exit

Apply or remove a tag when users exit early.

  • Leave the value blank to remove an existing tag.
  • If the app is at the tag limit, no tag will be applied.

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Common use cases:

  • Trigger another Journey:
    Tag users (e.g. exited-journey-1:true), then use that tag to define a segment for your next Journey.

  • Limit concurrent Journeys:
    Tag users when they enter (in-journey:true), and remove the tag when they finish or exit. This allows you to exclude them from other Journeys using that tag.

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Re-entry rules

Control how often users can re-enter a Journey after exiting.

Journey re-entry rules.

Use this for:

  • One-time Journeys: e.g. Black Friday promotions
  • Recurring campaigns: e.g. cart abandonment or inactivity-based campaigns

Re-entry settings only apply to users who exit after the rules are updated.
Earlier exits follow the original re-entry configuration.

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Schedule a Journey

Journey schedule options

You can schedule your Journey to start and stop at specific future times.

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Start time

  • The Journey will appear as Scheduled in the dashboard until the start time.
  • It automatically becomes Active at the configured start time.

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End time

  • The Journey will be Stopped and Archived once the end time is reached.
  • All messages immediately stop for users currently in the Journey.
  • These users will not trigger exit or early exit events.

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Let current users finish the Journey

To stop new users from entering but let current ones finish:

  1. Change the included segment to something empty (e.g. a Test Users segment).
  2. Uncheck “Exit when a user no longer matches the audience conditions.”

This ensures existing users continue through to the end.

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Entitlement limits

If your account has reached the maximum number of active Journeys:

  • New scheduled Journeys will fail to launch.
  • The most recent scheduler will be notified.
  • To resolve: stop and archive another Journey, then reschedule or activate the new one.