Editing Advanced Automation timers in which contacts are queued up can cause unintended consequences and result in unpredictable behavior. If you need to edit a timer that is in a launched automation, review our best practices for editing timers:
- Check the timer before editing to see if it contains queued contacts.
- If possible, only edit a timer when no contacts are queued in the timer.
Check a timer for queued contacts
- Enter a published automation and click Reporting in the upper right.
Open the sequence with the timer that you want to edit. This example sequence contains two timers.
Identify if there are any contacts currently queued in the timer that we want to edit. From the Date Range Filter drop-down select Current.
- When we set the Date Range Filter to Current, it enables us to see any contacts currently in queue. In this example sequence, there are currently 5 active contacts in the first sequence and zero active contacts in the second and third sequences.
To find out if it is safe to edit the first sequence, we first need to locate those 5 active contacts. In this example, we would open the first sequence.
It’s critical to double-check that we are viewing it in the Current time frame.
In this example, zero contacts are currently active in the first timer, so you can edit it without issue. And five contacts are waiting in the second timer. This means proceed with caution since editing it can drop contacts from the automation.
In this example, zero contacts are currently active in the first timer, so you can edit it without issue. And five contacts are waiting in the second timer. This means proceed with caution since editing it can drop contacts from the automation.Edit a timer in a live automation
Follow these steps if you need to edit a timer in a live automation with contacts that are currently active.
Create a tag to pull the contacts out of the automation.
Create a tag to later add the contacts back to the automation.
Tag all the "Active" contacts in the sequence to pull them out of the automation.
Change the timer.
Tag all the contacts so they are entered back into the automation.
Pro Tip! When you are using delay timers and want to add the contacts back to the sequence, they will restart at the very beginning of the sequence.
If you are wanting to restart the removed contacts at a point that is midway through the sequence, you have to duplicate the sequence, pull it apart from the existing funnel, remove the processes and timers that you want your contacts to bypass, then connect the current timer to the start button. You will need to mark everything as ready in the new sequence and republish the campaign. Then add the contacts to the newly created duplicate sequence.