Cohort Trigger

The Cohort trigger attaches a track to a cohort program, so the track runs as part of each cohort that program creates. Use it for onboarding intakes, training groups, and any experience where people who start together should move through content together.

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Attach a track to a cohort program

Pick Cohort as the trigger, either from a cohort program’s page (Create a cohort track or Create a per-person track) or directly in the track builder’s trigger picker for any draft track, new or existing. Choose the run mode and the program it runs in, and the builder shows the trigger as Cohort · Once per cohort or Cohort · For each person. Attaching a track to a program needs editor access on it (see the Access list). A program runs at most one active Once per cohort track, and any number of For each person tracks. Drafts are unlimited: you can build a replacement while the current track keeps running. The limit applies when you activate or resume, not when you save. Pausing or archiving the active track frees the slot. Pausing is the gentler of the two: cohorts already running that track deliver to the end, but it isn’t picked up for a new one. Archiving stops it everywhere, including for cohorts mid-sequence. The usual swap: pause the current track, then activate the replacement. When the program you’ve picked already has an active Once per cohort track, the trigger picker names it and links to it while you build, so you know which track to pause or archive. The run mode and program are only editable while the track is a draft. Move a draft to a different program, or switch its run mode, from the same trigger picker at any time. Archiving any track that’s attached to a cohort program, not just a track built this way, warns you first: the confirmation names the program and, if it still has active or upcoming cohorts, says they’ll lose this content when you go through with it. It’s a warning, not a block: archiving still goes ahead once you confirm.

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Start from an existing track

Instead of building from scratch, Import an existing track on the program’s page copies one of your existing tracks into a new draft already wired to this program and run mode, and opens it in the builder. The source track is never changed. Only your non-archived, non-cohort tracks are offered - a track already on a cohort isn’t, since it’s either a draft you can repoint directly from its own trigger settings, or a live track that needs archiving instead (see above). The copy carries over every step. Any that don’t fit the chosen run mode, like an Introductions or Tasks step imported into a once-per-cohort track, are kept but flagged as invalid in the builder, the same as if you’d added them there directly. Resolve or remove them before you can activate the copy.

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When per-person tracks start

A cohort has one clock: its first day. Day 1 of every per-person track is the first day of the cohort’s dates, at the program’s start time, read in each person’s own timezone. A 9:00 AM start lands at 9:00 AM local time for everyone, and later steps count from that same day. Per-person cohort tracks are not timed from each person’s own start date; that anchor belongs to the First day trigger, a separate feature. Most people land in a cohort days before it starts, and their tracks don’t start early. Each person is enrolled when the cohort opens, so the cohort, and its channel if it has one, exists before anything is sent. Someone who joins on the start day converges onto that clock: steps already due are delivered right away, and the rest keep their scheduled days. Someone who joins after the start day is enrolled and invited to the channel once their own start date has arrived, and their track then runs from the beginning at the next weekday slot during business hours, counting forward from there, rather than delivering past days all at once. Someone whose start date is still ahead of them waits: nothing is sent and no channel invite goes out until that day, even though the cohort is already running.

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Where each run mode sends

A Once per cohort track speaks to the group. Its steps post to the cohort channel by default, so the whole cohort receives messages, quizzes, or surveys together. A step can instead target a specific Slack channel, that channel’s members, specific people, or groups. Destinations relative to one person (User, Manager, Mentor, and the like) aren’t offered, because the track runs once for the whole cohort. A For each person track is a personal journey. Its steps deliver to the person being onboarded, or their manager, mentor, and the other per-person destinations, and can’t send to the cohort channel. Group announcements belong in the cohort track. Sending to the cohort channel only works when the program actually has a channel, meaning its Slack channel setting is Create automatically or Link existing. If a track sends to the cohort channel but the program is set to No channel, the track editor warns you and offers a one-click fix that switches the program to create a channel for each cohort. Publishing is blocked until the mismatch is resolved. If a published track ends up in this state anyway, for example because the program was edited later, the channel step fails with a stated reason and the rest of the track continues.

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Referencing the cohort in a message

Message steps on either run mode can pull in the cohort itself with placeholders: {{cohortChannel}} becomes a clickable mention of the cohort’s onboarding channel, and {{cohortMembers}} / {{cohortFacilitators}} list its roster. All three resolve live at send time, so they’re accurate even if the channel is created, or people join, after the track has started. See Step: Message for the full set and how each one renders. A step that posts to a channel can also appear under the cohort facilitator’s name and profile picture instead of Doozy’s, via Posted by. Unlike the {{cohortFacilitators}} placeholder, which lists everyone, Posted by uses one facilitator: the first on the cohort who’s connected to Slack.

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Editing a published cohort track

You can edit a cohort track’s steps while cohorts are running through it. Edits apply to steps that haven’t been sent yet, including in runs already in progress. The editor shows a notice reminding you of this when you edit a live cohort track. Its program and run mode are the one thing you can’t touch once it’s live - see above.

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