I’ve created a Custom Object called Blocked Entities. I have a Contact workflow that labels a contact as a potential e-commerce contact. The rest of the contacts get labeled “Needs Review”. So then we go in daily and change the “Needs Review” to “Clean” or “Junk”. When they are labeled as “Junk”, a new Blocked Entity is created, and the Contact and the associated Company are deleted. Voila! No junk clogging up my records.
But I want somehow to compare any NEW contacts with the Blocked Entities. So if someone with an email or domain that matches a Blocked Entity communicates with us, either through a form or shared inbox, they will be instantly deleted.
The problem is that I cannot make a contact list to compare them because, as you know, if you delete a contact, you cannot keep them on a list. I can make a list of Blocked Entities, but a Contact workflow won’t recognize a non-Contact list.
So I’m just looking for a solution. I can keep hitting the junk button, even if they’re already in my list, but if I can automate more of this, then that would be more better.
Hi @esealpha,
Since this seems to be a 1:1 relationship, is there a reason you’re not documenting on the contact object directly, in a dropdown property, whether a contact needs review, is junk etc?
This seems to tick all of the boxes you mention.
You could, on a regular basis, export the contacts you’re about to delete, and copy and paste the email addresses into a segment filtering for “Email is equal to any of…”. This list would grow and grow and could be a list that is used for enrollment in a contact-based workflow that deletes records.
You could of course also use a custom object to do the same. There would simply be one additional step of maintaining a segment that filters a growing list of email addresses. (I simply don’t see how the custom object adds to that process.)
Hope this helps!
The Junk Status is a Contact property. If I label them as Junk, they are deleted. So there is no way to add them to a list. The Custom Object is so that I can keep track of the Contacts we’ve deleted. I’d like to report on how much junk we are getting and explore ways to mitigate it. But ultimately, it takes a bothersome useless contact and removes it from the view of 99% of our users. But the info still exists if we want to report on it.
@esealpha if the list filters by email address, a contact reentering the CRM would also reenter the list - which could trigger a workflow and delete them again.
Maintaining the list is a manual step - but unless you want to custom code a solution, I don’t see another way.
What would be a custom-coded option? I’m not even sure what I should look for or ask to make that happen.
Hey @esealpha,
(And thanks for your help here @karstenkoehler)
I’ve included some articles that might help you understand what this looks like!
Additionally, if you’re not a developer you could browser our Solutions Directory and filter partners per your requirements for a possible project!
I hope this helps!
Sam, Community Manager