Frequently Questions About Workflows

Can contacts be in multiple workflows at the same time?

Yes, contacts can be a part of multiple workflows.

If a contact is in more than one campaign – do they move into suppression lists for each campaign?

With the creation of a workflow, you can decide whether a contact can be in two campaigns at the same time or not. Workflow Settings will allow you to define from which other workflows a contact should be unenrolled when a given workflow begins. Note that the default is None, so if they want each user to be part of just one campaign, they will have to change that default to All or a list of specific workflows. You can also explicitly set suppression lists for each workflow you create. This is also done in Workflow Settings.

I’ve been changing the timing of some of my workflow steps. When will the actions happen?

With timing changes, the next step of any workflow gets scheduled when the step before it executes. For example, if you have a workflow of two steps and change the timing of the second step after the first step has occurred, that second step will execute according to the timing BEFORE you changed it (because that was the timing that was in place when the first step was executed). If there are more steps after that, they will each get scheduled when the steps prior to them execute, so as long as you make a change to a step before it’s previous step executes for a contact, that change will affect that contact.

With content changes, of an email sent as the result of a workflow step can be changed up until right before that step is executed for any contact. Those changes go into effect immediately.

What happens when a workflow changes?

When you make edits to a workflow, the people who have completed the workflow won’t get affected; the people who just got enrolled into the workflow (after you saved changes) will get enrolled in the revised workflow.

How do I get a contact out of a workflow?

The only way to get a customer out of a workflow is to get them into another workflow that is set to remove contacts from other workflows.

When I set the timing of a step to all zeros, when does it execute?

The step occurs immediately once it is triggered.

Are there ever any delays when my workflows are triggered?

Yes. When you are triggering a workflow from a Smart List, there is usually a 10 to 15 minute delay because it takes that time to add a contact to the list.

How does ‘Execute on business days only’ work?

First, you must add this option via the Settings of each individual workflow. When this setting is set, the workflow will not execute on weekends; however, weekends will count towards the timing of the workflow.  For example, if the starting condition is executed on a Friday and the action has a timing of 3 days, the actions will trigger on Monday (HubSpot counts Saturday and Sunday as day 1 and day 2).  If the starting condition occurs on a weekend, HubSpot will differ the beginning of the timing to the same time on Monday.  For example, if someone were to manually nurture a static list at noon on a Saturday, HubSpot would differ it to Monday, and execute at the same time on Saturday.

How can Workflows “know” that a lead has become a customer?

You can set up a Smart List which looks at the Lifecycle Stage of Contacts and when that is equal to Customer. The, you can use that Smart List as a suppression list in the Workflows tool. In this way every time a member of the workflow becomes a Customer, they will get into the Smart List and also be suppressed from proceeding in that workflow.

Can you have negative hours or minutes as the step timing?

Example: if a lead downloads something at 1pm EST, can you put in your workflow 1 day and -1 hour later so that it would send the next day at noon EST? 

No. Right now the default is that whenever the person first enrolled into the workflow (say 2pm EST), that is when they will receive the next step in the series unless the delay explicitly includes hours/minutes. Customers can also set the workflow to execute steps only within a certain time range.

If a contact unsubscribes, how do they subscribe again?

If people unsubscribed from an email in a workflow, they will be globally unsubscribed from your email communication. If they change their mind and want to opt back in, they can locate one of the old emails they have received, go to the Email Preferences and change their status there.

Can you test workflows?

Right now this isn’t possible, but you can test the one-off emails in the email editor. To test the timing delay and other aspects of your workflows, you need to create a contact record or a “fake lead” that goes through the campaign.

What happens if an email in a Workflow get deleted?

Before you delete the email, we will warn you that this email is associated with a worklfow. Then, the email is just not going to go out and in history timeline of the workflow you will see a message that the email no longer exists.

Source : HubSpot

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