Managing the flow of contacts in automation processes
Kentico EMS required
Features described on this page require the Kentico EMS license.
Automation processes run in a separate instance for each contact. You can move contacts through steps that require human input or manually override the automatic decisions of the process.
The system provides the following lists of contacts in automation processes:
- Pending contacts - all contacts that you are allowed to move from their current step within any running automation process
- The contacts within a specific process (including those in the Finished step)
Note: You need to have the Read contacts Contact management permission to view the lists of contacts. If you only have the permission for a specific site, you can only see contacts from the given site.
Managing pending contacts:
- Use the My pending contacts application for managing contacts in running processes.
The application displays a list of contacts within any active automation process (i.e. not in the Finished step). You can only see contacts that you are allowed to move from their current step in the process. To move contacts, you need to be included in the step’s security settings or have the Manage processes on-line marketing permission.
Tip: You can also manage pending contacts through the My pending contacts widget, which you can add to your widget dashboards.
Managing contacts in a specific process:
- Open the Marketing automation application.
- Edit () the process whose contacts you want to manage.
- Open the Contacts tab.
The page shows a list of all contacts in the process (including those in the Finished step).
Moving contacts between steps in the process
When viewing the list of pending contacts or the contacts within a specific process, click Manage process () next to a specific contact. A diagram appears where you can see the current position of the contact within the process.
The following actions are available:
Note: You can only use the actions allowed by your on-line marketing permissions and the security settings of individual steps.
|
Action |
Description |
|
Move to next step |
|
|
Move to previous step |
Moves the contact back to the previous step in the process. The contact’s previous step is not necessarily the step that precedes the current step in the process designer, for example if the contact was manually moved using the Move to specific stepaction. |
|
Move to specific step |
Moves the contact to any step of your choice. |
|
Comment and move to step |
Available after clicking on the Move to next step, Move to previous step or Move to specific step buttons. Opens a dialog where you can enter a comment for the step transition. Choose the target step using the selector above the comment box. The comment is then visible in the Process history. |
|
Remove from process |
Ends the automation process for the given contact. This deletes the entire process instance running for the contact. For example, you can use the remove action if a contact gets stuck in a step that has incorrectly set conditions or connections. |
Tip: You can view the history of all step transitions made by the contact in the Process history section below the process diagram.
Tracking marketing automation in the Event log
By default, the system logs an event log entry whenever a contact moves to a different step in a marketing automation process. You can view the event log in the Event log application.
Disabling event logging for marketing automation
When running automation processes for very large numbers of contacts, logging of step transitions may lead to a cluttered event log or even website performance problems.
Administrations with access to the web project’s file system can disable the logging of these events by adding the following key to the appSettings section of the web.config file:
<add key="CMSLogMATransitions" value="false" />