Skip to main content
The journey canvas is where you build and arrange your customer journeys. This article covers how to work on the canvas itself: adding, connecting, moving, duplicating, and deleting steps. For what each individual flow step does, see the Journey Canvas flow-steps reference.

​
The Canvas at a Glance

When you open a journey, you see the canvas with a few persistent controls:
  • Add step panel (right) — the palette of flow steps, grouped by category (Email, Timing, Branching, Integrations, Lists, Data, Salesforce, Structure).
  • Canvas toolbar (bottom center) — Undo, Redo, Tidy Up, Add note, and zoom controls.
  • Mini map (bottom right) — a zoomed-out overview for navigating large journeys.
  • Step toolbar — appears beside a step when you hover over it, with edit, duplicate, and delete actions.
Journey canvas overview showing the Add step panel, canvas toolbar, and mini map
You can edit the canvas only while a journey is unpublished or paused. Published, running journeys open in read-only mode — you can pan, zoom, and copy steps, but not change them. To edit a live journey, pause it first (see Pausing and Editing Active Journeys).

​
Add a Flow Step

  1. Open the Add step panel on the right.
  2. Drag a step from the panel onto the canvas and drop it where you want it. Or click a step in the panel to drop it at the center of the view.
  3. The new step appears on the canvas, ready to configure.
Dragging a step from the Add step panel and dropping it on the canvas

​
Connect Flow Steps

Connections define the order contacts move through your journey.
  1. Hover over the step you want to connect from. A small round handle appears at the bottom of the step.
  2. Drag from that handle to the handle at the top of the step you want to connect to.
  3. Release to create the connection. The cursor shows a crosshair while you drag.
Branching steps (such as Branch by filter) have a separate handle for each path, so you can wire each branch to a different next step.
Connections can’t cross a nested-journey boundary. To connect a step inside a container to one outside it, wire the container’s exit handle to the outer step instead.
Dragging from a step's handle to another step to create a connection

​
Select and Move Steps

  • Select a step by clicking it. A colored ring shows it’s selected.
  • Select multiple steps by holding Shift and clicking each one, or by dragging a selection box (marquee) across the canvas.
  • Move selected steps by dragging any one of them — the whole selection moves together — or by nudging with the arrow keys.
  • Deselect everything by pressing Esc.
When one or more steps are selected, a small toolbar appears at the bottom center showing the count (for example, 3 nodes) with quick Copy and Delete actions. Selecting multiple steps and moving them together on the canvas

​
Duplicate a Step

  1. Hover over the step you want to copy.
  2. In the step toolbar that appears, click the duplicate icon.
  3. A copy appears just below and to the right of the original, with the same configuration.
Duplicating a step using the duplicate icon in the step toolbar

​
Copy and Paste Steps

Copy and paste lets you reuse one or many steps — even across different journeys.
  1. Select one or more steps.
  2. Press Cmd+C (Mac) or Ctrl+C (Windows) to copy.
  3. Press Cmd+V / Ctrl+V to paste. Pasted steps appear slightly offset from the originals.
When you copy multiple steps, the connections between them are copied too, so a pasted group keeps its internal structure. To move a group of steps into another journey, copy them in one journey and paste them into another. Copying steps and pasting them elsewhere on the canvas

​
Undo and Redo

Every canvas change can be undone.
  • Click Undo in the toolbar, or press Cmd+Z / Ctrl+Z.
  • Click Redo, or press Cmd+Shift+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z.
If the journey changed since your last action (for example, another editor made an edit), undo may not apply. You’ll see a brief message and the canvas will refresh to the latest saved state.
Undoing and redoing changes with the canvas toolbar

​
Tidy Up (Auto-Arrange)

Click Tidy Up or Align actions in the toolbar to automatically arrange your steps into a clean, readable layout. Tidy up re-flows the whole canvas — including the contents of any nested journeys — and recenters the view. Align is applied only on selected nodes Using Tidy Up and Align actions to auto-arrange steps

​
Add a Sticky Note

Sticky notes let you leave context for yourself and your teammates on the canvas. They don’t affect how the journey runs.
  1. Click Add note in the toolbar. A note appears at the center of the view.
  2. Double-click the note to type. Click away to save.
  3. Drag the note’s corners to resize it.
Adding and editing a sticky note on the canvas

​
Delete Steps and Connectors

You can delete a single step, a connector, or several steps at once:
  • A step: hover over it and click the delete icon in its toolbar, or select it and press Delete / Backspace.
  • A connector: select it and press Delete / Backspace. Connectors delete without a prompt — undo with Cmd+Z if needed.
  • Multiple steps: select them and press Delete / Backspace.
Deleting a step opens a confirmation. If contacts are currently sitting at that step, the confirmation warns you how many — deleting may cause those contacts not to complete the journey.
Deleting a step can leave the steps that followed it disconnected (“orphaned”). Reconnect them after deleting. You can undo a delete with Cmd+Z.
Deleting a step with a confirmation dialog

​
Keyboard Shortcuts

Additional resources