About the Sample process in interactive flowcharts

The Sample process in interactive flowcharts fills the same purpose of Sample processes in batch flowcharts, to create one or more cells for different treatments, control groups, or a subset of data for modeling. However, the interactive flowchart Sample process contains only a subset of the features in the Sample process in batch flowcharts. The Sample Size Calculator and Maximum Cell Size are removed. Interactive flowchart Sample processes also have a new method for selecting the sample, the Deterministic Hash Function.

In a batch flowchart, the Sample process randomly selects some number of customers to be in a sample cell. In an interactive flowchart, however, during run time, the Sample process works with a single customer at a time. When you define the % for a sample, you are defining the probability that a visitor becomes a member of that cell.

When defining sample cells, you must create at least two. Define a % for one sample, and select All Remaining for the other. If you do not do this, you will have undefined results. For example, if you create one 30% sample only, the remaining 70% of visitors are not assigned to any cell.

You must connect the Sample process to a PopulateSeg process to complete creating a smart segment that you use for sampling.

The Deterministic Hash Function assigns visitors to samples randomly. However, if the same visitor passes through the interactive flowchart more than once, the visitor is placed in the same cell. If you want to ensure that visitors are eligible to be sampled differently after they have been placed in the same cell repeatedly, you can configure a time period for the Deterministic Hash Function. (Adjust the Date of first reset and Number of days between resets.)

If you are creating a flowchart that copies the functionality of another flowchart, you can ensure that the Sample process uses the same Deterministic Hash Function as the original interactive flowchart by using the Hash Seed field. To place visitors in the same sample group, use the same number of cells, Hash Seed, Date of First Reset, and reset period in both Sample processes. Interact uses the value of the Hash Input seed and the reset date to determine which cell the visitor is placed in.

To configure the Sample process

Use an interactive flowchart in the Edit mode to configure a Sample process.

In an interactive flowchart in Edit mode, add a Sample process to the flowchart workspace.

Provide input to the Sample process by connecting it to one or more data manipulation processes.

Data manipulation processes include Decision, Sample, or Select. You can connect the Sample process to an Interaction process also.

Double-click the Sample process.

Select one or more source cells from the Input drop-down list.

All output cells from any process that is connected to the Sample process are listed in the drop-down list. To use more than one source cell, select the Multiple Cells option. If more than one source cell is selected, the same sampling is completed on each source cell.

Determine the number of samples that you want to create for each of your input cells, and enter that number in the # of Samples/Output Cells field.