Managing Contacts

The Automation Program Builder is a great tool, but understanding the management of your contacts is essential to get the most from the it.

This documentation will guide you through how to effectively manage your contacts, whether at a top or granular level. This document includes how to add contacts to your program, reviewing contact progress and how to fast-track individual contacts through program stages.

On this page:

Adding Contacts to a Program

Contacts can be added to programs in a number of ways.

Note: Any changes made to associated data inputs will implicate the program, too.

Forms

When creating a form you can add an action to Add to Program. For more information on forms see the Forms topic.

You can then Select Program, which will display any available programs on the same Core Table as the form. When a contact submits this form they will then be added to the selected program.

Note: If the form's only action is to 'add to program', it will not be added to a list, unless prompted to do so by the program.

Lists

Any new contacts in a list, that are associated to a program, will automatically be placed into the program at the same time.

Go to your desired list and navigate to the Associated Programs tab. Click Add Program and select the program you want the list associated to.

Note: Contacts that exist in the list when first associating to a program must be added manually to it to progress.

Dynamic Lists

You can add Dynamic lists the same way you add lists.

Tip: The benefit of using Dynamic Lists are that you can filter the contacts from multiple lists at once. This is great if you want to create account level programs, such as reactivations or data cleansing.

Note: The scheduled update of your Dynamic List should coincide with your program, as it will be automatically updated, too. You can use delay stages to do this.

Programs

It is possible to add contacts from one program to another. Use the 'Add to Program' stage and you will be able to link two programs together.

Manually

There are two ways to manually add contacts to a program:

  • Multiple contacts: select contacts from a list's 'Browse' tab using the checkboxes, then click 'Add to Program'.

Note: The checkbox at the top of the table will select all contacts on that page. You can increase the number of rows visible in the data table at the bottom, by selecting the desired number.

  • Individually: view a contact profile, which you can access by browsing a list or the core table. When in the contact overview you can add them to a program via the 'Automation' tab, which (like associating lists) allows you to 'Add to Program'.

Contacts Tab

Note: To edit contacts you must first pause the program.

The contacts tab details who is in the program, their current stage and date of completion. From here you can manually manage their progress or remove them.

Once the program is paused you can select a contact from the Contacts tab and you will be shown their overview. This will show details such as their current stage and when they were Created within the program.

Individual Contact Management

The Automation Program Builder allows you to perform granular management of the contacts progressing through it. Whether it's fast-tracking, removing or reactivating, the following documentation will show you how.

Manual Stage Selection

To move contacts to a different stage you can click the 'Select Stage' button. A pop-up will then show the available stages the contact can be placed.

Remove Contact

You can remove contacts manually from within the program. To do this, view the individual contact and under 'Contact Status' click the 'Remove Contact' button.

Note: Contacts can only be removed if the program is paused.

Reactivating Removed Contacts

You can also reactivate a contact that has been removed manually. This is done the same way as removing a contact, but Remove Contact will be replaced with Activate Contact if the contact has been manually removed.

Clicking this will place the contact back in to the program where they were removed.

You can also reactivate multiple contacts by going to the stage overview.

Click the stage on the canvas and then the contact numbers. Under the contacts tab, select the check boxes of the desired contacts and click 'Reactivate Selected Contacts'.

Note: Remember you must reactivate the program for contacts to continue progressing through it.

Progress of Contacts

Contact progress can be seen by clicking on a stage in the Editor Canvas.

This will bring up the editor sidebar with a new box showing 'Active' and 'process' contacts, which can be viewed by clicking the blue number alongside it.

Note: The last stage of the program will show a removed number, which represents the number that are no longer active within the program.

Removing Data Associations

To stop contacts from a data source being added to a program you need to disassociate it.

This is not done from the current program. Instead, it must be done from the data source itself. Go to the 'Actions' tab for forms and 'Associated Programs' for lists, and click 'Remove...' to remove the association.

If the data source is in another program you will need to delete the 'Add to Program' stage within it.

Repeating Contacts

Contacts can go through a program more than once if the appropriate radio button is selected upon the Program's creation. You can change this by going to the 'Settings' tab.

FAQ

I've activated my program but contacts are receiving campaigns too early!

Our Automation program logs when a contact is added to the program, regardless of whether it is paused or not. If your program includes a Wait Until delay stage that is configured for a time after your contacts were added, when the program is activated it will check for any jobs that require running whilst paused. This can lead to contacts progressing through a delay stage and onto the next stage in your program. For example:

Program is paused>Contacts added at 10:00 1st Feb>Program Activated at 10:00 on 2nd Feb>Program immediately finds a "Wait Until 10:15" Stage and contacts that were added at 10:00 the previous day>Program progresses these contacts>At 10:15 on 2nd Feb, nothing happens as all contacts have been progressed

To prevent this from happening when you create a program, create a Wait Until delay with a future start date. This prevents contacts from progressing through the program until the specified start day and time.

Why are my contacts being processed but not receiving campaigns?

It could be that your published campaign has a filter attached. These filters will be taken into consideration by the Automation Program when the campaign is launched and this could prevent some contacts from receiving a campaign.

We would advise that you should select a list that does not include filters when publishing and to include any filters needed within the Automation Program itself.

What happens to contacts on a delay stage if I pause and re-activate my automation program?

The delay stages note the date at which the contact is added to the stage. If you pause your program and reactivate after the elapsed time for that contact, they will be automatically progressed to the next stage. For example:

A contact is added to a 1 day wait stage. You pause the program and then reactivate 2 days later. This contact will immediately progress to the next stage.

Alternative scenario: A contact is added to a 2 day wait stage. You pause the program and then reactive the next day. The contact still has 1 day remaining on the stage before it progresses.

What would happen if I deleted a stage with contacts on?

The program builder doesn't allow you to delete a stage if it has contacts on it. If you wish to edit your program in such a way, you can manually move the contacts affected to the stage you deem appropriate.

Why can't I repeat a contact through a program?

When creating your program you need to select whether a contact can pass through the program more than once or not. If Contacts pass through this program only once is selected, they will not be able to begin the process again.