Workflow Design and Automation
Workflow questions test fluency with activities, transitions, and targeting. Know the core building blocks: start/end, query, union, intersection, exclusion, split, enrichment, delivery, update data, import/export, JavaScript code, wait, scheduler, approval, and sub-workflow. Understand targeting vs. filtering dimensions, how temporary work tables (wkf/temp) carry populations between activities, and how enrichment adds attributes. Candidates must reason about execution order and dependencies, error handling via transitions (the error output), and restart/resume behavior. Know technical workflows that run the system (tracking, billing, cleanup, deliverability) versus campaign workflows, and how scheduler vs. signal activities trigger runs.
Traps: assuming a query's population persists after the workflow ends (it does not - use update/export to persist); confusing split (mutually exclusive branches by filter) with union; forgetting that exclusion compares on the targeting dimension key; misjudging approval as blocking only the human step rather than downstream execution. A frequent miss is transition labeling and multiple outputs from a query.
Rule of thumb: design for restartability - persist state and make activities idempotent; put error transitions on risky steps. Worked example: a nightly reactivation flow - query inactive recipients, exclude recent purchasers, split by engagement, enrich with offer, send delivery, and log to a custom table via update data so a re-run does not double-send (use a sent-flag filter).