Troubleshoot your custom actions

You can test your custom actions by sending API calls from the administration section of Journey Optimizer user interface. This capability helps you troubleshoot your custom actions before or after using them in a journey.

As an administrator, use the Send test request capability to validate your custom action configurations by making real API calls directly from Adobe Journey Optimizer. This feature ensures that the request structure, headers, authentication, and payload are correctly formatted before being used in a journey.

Use this capability streamlines the testing and validation process, ensuring that custom actions function correctly in live journeys.

Prerequisites

To use the Send test request capability, a custom action must be pre-configured with a URL, headers, and authentication settings.

For the administrators to use this capability, the following permissions are required:

• Users must have the Manage journeys events, data sources and actions permission.
• This permission is included in the Journey Administrators role.
• The View journeys events permission alone is not sufficient.

Learn more about journey permissions in this section.

How to use the Send test request feature

To test a custom action, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Actions configuration screen, and select a custom action.

2. Click on the Send test request button at the bottom of the action configuration screen.
   

3. In the pop-up window, allowing you to specify request parameters:

   • If the custom action method is GET, no payload is required.

   • If the custom action method is POST, you must provide a JSON payload.

     NOTE

     Adobe Journey Optimizer will raise an error if the structure of this JSON is incorrect, but will not do it if there is a mismatch with a data type. For instance, there will be no error if an integer parameter is used for what should be a string.

   • If authentication is defined, you will be prompted to enter authentication details.

4. Click Send to execute the request.

5. The response from the API, including headers and status codes, will be displayed in the interface.

Authentication handling

When a custom action includes authentication, Adobe Journey Optimizer requires the user to enter authentication details for each test request:

• Basic Authentication: The user must provide the password.
• API Key Authentication: The user must enter the API key value.
• Custom Authentication: The user must supply the authentication parameters in the request bodyParam. Two sections are added in this case: Authentication request and Authentication response.

Key benefits

As a Journey Optimizer administrator, you can also use external tools (e.g., Postman) to test your custom actions. Key benefits of the in-product troubleshooting capability compared to an external testing are listed below:

• The test request is executed by AJO Journey, meaning:

  • The exact request structure (including Adobe Journey Optimizer specific headers) is used.
  • The source IP and headers match those used in live journeys.

• The Send test request capability can be used for troubleshooting live journeys, as the custom action is already deployed.

• This in-product testing capability eliminates the need to manually copy configuration details between tools, reducing the risk of errors.

Troubleshooting

If the request fails, you can check:

• The authentication credentials entered in the test.
• The request method (GET vs. POST) and corresponding payload.
• The API endpoint and headers defined in the custom action.
• Use the response data to identify potential misconfigurations.