HubSpot Ideas

rizq786

Display number of contacts in a workflow delay

Please bring back the number that was displayed in workflows in a delay. This was very useful to see how many contacts exactly were at each delay and how they were moving through a nurture sequence. 

 

This was replaced with "Active Contacts In This Action" which to be honest is rather insignificant and does not tell me anything except contacts are waiting. Knowing an exact number allows me to assess how many contacts are there and if I want to change their course of action then what number i am dealing with or if I want to introduce a logic feature and split that delay what number I am working with.

 

Its unfortunate that hubspot would deem this an irrelevant feature to many hubspot users who use this figure in our nurture sequences and replace it with something that is in fact irrelevant. 

34 Replies
franksteiner79
Recognized Expert

Hi @rizq786 

 

Isn't that the same thing, just named differently?

As a workflow executes in real time and a matter of seconds, the only valid number is the contacts which are currently in a delay. To the best of my knowledge and recollection this has always shown the number of contacts currently "waiting" in the delay step.

 

Frank

DominikRich
Participant

Hi @franksteiner79 

yes and since some days this number is not shown any more on the dalys steps. It just says tha there are contacts on the delay step but not how much... 😒

Best regards,

Dominik

DominikRich_0-1693919888215.png

 

RLicau
Contributor

I'm quite sad this was taken away as I'd use it for reporting purposes (no further list or contact view needed). 

JHall13
Participant

Bring it back!  Now!  This was a feature I used all the time

Spoiler
 
BNikolic
Member

Please bring this feature back to workflows. Pretty much useful from the tracking and reporting perspective.

OliviaSK
Member

yeah this seems like a huge oversight. 

Cool, I can go and see each person individually but there is no way to see how many! How is Marketing Ops supposed to see the number of expected emails to go out on the next step? HUGE GAP AREA HubSpot.

CEastburn
Member

This really needs to be brought back!

EKlein2
Participant

Please bring this feature back. It is so helpful and needed!

spencerbomboir
Member

Please bring back this feature! I found it extremely helpful to see things at a glance. 

CHawkins
Top Contributor

Upvoted! I've encountered this issue as well, and found a somewhat inconvenient workaround to determine the number of contacts in a workflow delay: You can click on the "Active contacts in this action" link, which allows you to select all contacts by checking the checkbox at the top. This action will provide you with a count of the listed contacts.

The only downside is that if the count exceeds 50 contacts, you'll need to scroll to the bottom of the module to "load" all the contacts to obtain an accurate count.

I've recorded this video demonstrating this workaround I hope you find it useful!

rizq786
Contributor

Yeh but its an unnecessary step that has to be taken for a feature that was readily available before. Although appreciate the video with the workaround. When we are here trying to streamline automation, we are ending up adding extra steps to the process and if you have over 100k records enrolled then check all is not going to help! 

Hubspot just restore that number in workflows please.

OliviaSK
Member

@CHawkins HI! Miss working with you!
Thank you for the tip, but yes unfortunately for the workflows I am using we have thousands in the delay steps so this is a lot of scrolling. Alas, this is technically a work around but doesn't solve all the issues with this. HS please take time to think this one through. 

Would love to have actual reporting or list filters where I could use criteria that were helpful. It would be awesome to pull lists on people who completed the workflow AND also only made it to "XYZ" step.

Use cases: Seeing the total helps Ops identify if the correct number of people are moving through the workflow. 

It also allows us to see what is upcoming in the next email and the expected number of sends. 

Without this there is no other way that HS can provide a way to audit or admin people within the workflow. 

it would be so much more helpful to report or create lists of people in a current wait step so we can track total counts as mentioned above but in a reporting structure. 

especially when marketing is updating workflows for nurtures as an example. we sometimes add emails at a later time and not everyone receives all the emails since they have already completed the workflow. 

Today Ops has to do some spreadsheet magic. I pull a list of people who completed the workflow and then pull another list for each email that was sent of recipients to match up the difference and that would be the group of people who need to receive the new emails. Instead of doing that, it would be great to just pull the list with all the criteria filters I need for workflow filters.

EX: we created a nurture with 5 emails and people completed the workflow. However, marketing added 5 new emails to that nurture (workflow) and wants all the people who finished the workflow but DID NOT receive the new emails added so they can essentially launch that portion of the new nurture with people who already completed the workflow

secondly, in this example, this is where being able to add people back to a workflow at a certain step would be HUGE. Another idea I need to updvote somewhere.

06163
Member

Upvoting this one. Super disappointed that Hubspot would think it is OK to remove this count. Not having access to this data poses a negative impact to our business. Unacceptable. We often have 100's of 1000's of contacts enrolled in workflows at any one time, and knowing where these contacts are sitting in a workflow is key. There is no acceptable workaround.

JBarbosa0
Member

There is no point in removing this feature. It was the ONLY way I could measure my worflows for nurturing purposes, now I need to scroll (if I have 1000 people on the delay imagine the time it takes...) to know how many people are waiting.

 

This completely ruins the way I manage my workflows, Please undo this update ASAP.

rizq786
Contributor

@06163 totally with you - its a nightmare right now for all the active workflows I have right now
@JBarbosa0 literally no point and honestly not exactly sure what was acheived by taking that feature out


MeganLegge
HubSpot Product Team

Hi Everyone,

 

I'm Megan, a product manager for the workflows tool. Thank you for taking the time to follow up and let us know how this change is impacting you. For background, here's what happened:

 

Previously, you could see the total number of records active in workflow actions. For example, if 20 contacts were waiting in a delay, the delay action would display the detail "20 contacts." Unfortunately, after persistent bug reports, we decided this count was too unstable and was causing more harm than help. We therefore removed the specific count of records from actions on August 30th, 2023 and replaced it with the text "Active" when there are records actively waiting in an action. As before, you can still click on the card to open a left side panel to review a list of all of the active records currently in each action. The records shown in the sidebar will be accurate in detail and total count.

 

That said, based on your feedback, I no longer think this is true "....was causing more harm than help."

 

My team and I are jumping back onto this problem to see if we can come up with an alternate, reliable solution that meets some of the needs you all are outlining. I will update this thread with more detail when I can.

 

Thank you,
Megan

rizq786
Contributor

@MeganLegge I appreciate your time taken to explain the reason for the removal of the showing an actual number in the delay but happy that given the feedback on this thread, you understand the importance of it to many of us in how we use it in our workflows, strategy and reporting. 

 

We look forward to a viable solution that will meet all our needs! 

 

Riz

06163
Member

@MeganLegge thanks for the update. Yes please - fix the issue rather than remove the feature. Clicking on the "Active" text to view contacts is useless in most instances of our business. I currently have hundreds of K contacts sitting in delay steps. It is literally impossible to load them all and then tally them up.

OliviaSK
Member

@MeganLegge 
Thank you so much for watching and responding back to us (the users). It is not often users are listened to or at least responded to on issues/features that matter to us. 

I can understand a lot goes into development and that HS was considering the accuracy of the previous feature, but it really has now left us in the dark. Look forward to seeing the update here on this idea!

JNelson95
Member

It was a very unnecessary change, even an unstable (but relatively close) number is better than no number at all to be honest - now I don't have any guage into how many people are in the workflow. Also I'd love for the list of people in the delay to be listed in order of "remaining time in action" - I never understood why the list of contacts in delay were sporadically ordered in literally no order that I can identify.