What Contact Statuses Mean in Advanced Automations

When a contact is enrolled in an advanced automation, the automation builder tracks the contact's progress using one of three statuses: Active, Queued, or Done. Understanding what each status means helps you diagnose why contacts are or are not receiving your automation content, and whether any action is needed on your part to keep them moving through the sequence.

You can view contact statuses by opening an automation, clicking the three-dot menu next to the automation, and selecting View reports. In the automation builder window, click the Reporting tab in the upper-right corner. Change the Date Range Filter to Current to see contacts in their present status. To view contacts in a specific status within a sequence, hover over the sequence block and click the person icon that appears in the upper-right corner of the sequence. The results default to showing Active contacts. To view contacts in a different status, click the Edit Criteria/Columns button, select the status you want to view in the Status field, and click OK.

Active Status

Contacts with an Active status are shown in blue in the automation builder reporting view. An Active contact is currently waiting on a timer or waiting for an action — such as sending an email, applying a tag, removing a tag, or creating a task — to finish processing. In most cases, the only time you will see contacts with an Active status is when they are waiting on a delay timer in a sequence.

The sequence block in the automation builder displays a blue contact count indicator when contacts in that sequence have an Active status. Active contacts are awaiting a timer or a pending action and will continue moving through the sequence automatically when the timer or action completes.

Queued Status

Contacts with a Queued status are shown in orange in the automation builder reporting view. A Queued contact has completed all available steps in the current sequence and is waiting at the end of the sequence with no further steps to process. Queued contacts are not receiving new content yet, but they can receive content if new steps are added to the end of the sequence — provided the conditions below are met.

The sequence block displays an orange contact count indicator when contacts have a Queued status. A Queued contact has finished all steps in the current sequence and is waiting with no further steps to process.

How Queued Status Works: Example

A contact enters a sequence today and a tag is applied to the contact tomorrow. After the tag is applied, no further steps exist in the sequence, so the contact becomes Queued.

If you add a delay timer and a task to the end of the sequence the next day — while the contact has been Queued for only one day — the contact will become Active again and will receive the new task.

The sequence now contains a delay timer followed by a Create Task step added after the point where the contact became Queued. Because the contact has been Queued for less than the duration of the delay timer, the delay timer will still apply and the contact will receive the task.

However, if the contact has been in Queued status for longer than the delay timer duration — for example, if the contact has been Queued for 2 weeks and the delay timer is set to "Wait at least 1 day" — the contact has already passed the timer's wait period. In that case, the Queued contact will be skipped past the delay timer and will not receive the steps added after it.

Queued contacts remain in Queued status until one of the following occurs: the contact achieves a goal in the automation that moves them to the next sequence, or you manually remove the contact from the automation.

Done Status

Contacts with a Done status have completely finished all sequences in the automation. Done contacts are not displayed in the Reporting tab of the automation builder — they do not appear in the performance view. A Done contact cannot receive any additional content from the automation unless the contact is re-triggered into the automation, either by manually re-adding the contact to the automation or by the contact achieving a start goal that re-enrolls them.

How to Find Contacts in a Specific Status

1. In the automation builder list, locate the automation you want to check. Click the three-dot menu icon next to the automation name to open the automation options menu.

2. In the automation options menu, click View reports to open the automation reporting view in the automation builder.

   

   The three-dot menu next to the automation displays several options. The View reports option is listed in the menu. Clicking View reports opens the automation builder in reporting mode, where contact statuses are visible on each sequence block.

3. In the automation builder reporting view, click the Reporting tab near the upper-right corner of the builder window. Change the Date Range Filter to Current to display contacts in their present status rather than historical data.
4. To view the contacts in a specific sequence with a specific status, hover over the sequence block. A person icon will appear in the upper-right corner of the sequence block. Click the person icon to open the contact list for that sequence. By default, the contact list displays contacts with an Active status.
5. To view contacts with a different status — such as Queued or Done — click the Edit Criteria/Columns button in the contact list panel. In the window that opens, locate the Status field and select the status you want to view. Click OK to apply the filter. The contact list will update to display only contacts with the selected status in that sequence.