Be Careful with Not In Program as a Program Status in Choice Steps

[markfarnell]

Be aware that using "Not in Program" as a Program Status for a choice step in Flow, may lead to unexpected results.

We have set up an invite flow for a webinar so that on the first run leads get email "a" via choice step (as not a member of the program) and on the 2nd run they get email "b" (default). As part of the flow leads are added to the program based on whether the email was actually sent or not - so after the first run they are a member of the program.

Everyone got email "b" on the first pass.

Turns out the default choice is applied - I still don't quite understand why Marketo doesn't see them as Not In Program but it was advised by Support.

In this use case it would be better to apply a Not Was Sent email choice step i.e. Not Was Sent email "a", send email "a"; default to "b".

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

Because it's checking for that status (or lack of status in this case) in ANY program, not just the current program context. All Add Choice filters work like this!

[markfarnell]

Thanks Sandford, I thought that in a flow the Program Status was specific to that program. Logically you are saying that everyone in the smart list was a member of another webinar program?

[SanfordWhiteman]

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Logically you are saying that everyone in the smart list was a member of another webinar program?

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Not in at least one program, more like.

[markfarnell]

This is where I do come unstuck a bit in the logic.  Choice 1 says to send the email if they are not a member of a webinar program.  As they all had the default choice this means they were all a member of a webinar program.  Also we use a similar choice step for post webinar follow up; if attended send email a, if not send email b and this post https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Marketo-Whisperer-Blogs/Using-Program-Status-as-a-Choice-in-a-Flow-Ste... suggests the choice step is contextual ie is referring to the program the smart campaign is in. So to me at least this is still unclear.

[Amy_Goldfine]

Yeah this one is a little tricky. The way to get around it would be to create a smart campaign for people who are not members of the program, and then your choice is "if member of smart list"