Can success be revoked?

[Angus_McCann1]

We have a channel that has the following steps:

1. 10 - Member
2. 20 - Filled Out Form (Success)
3. 30 - Influenced (Success)
4. 40 - Lead Not Accepted

I've noticed that people that are the "Lead Not Accepted" status are still marked as a Success in these programs? Is this by design or is this something I should put into support. I know people can't move backwards in status in programs, but wasn't sure if success could be revoked in a later step.

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

This is expected behavior. If somebody has passed through a Success status, then they are marked as Success, even their current (and higher-ranked) status doesn't explicitly have Success.

You can revoke their success without removing them from the Program, by using the flow step Change Program Success.

[Angus_McCann1]

Thanks, Sanford. That is definitely less than ideal to not have success be revoked with the program status change, but at least it can be!

[SanfordWhiteman]

The thing is, though, a higher status represents a more "final" status in time, but doesn't necessarily  mean everything about the current status needs to be undone.

So if someone has achieved success and then later is moved to a non-success, that's not necessarily the same as un-success (in the sense of "undo success." Depends on the business situation!

This has a lot in common with the question of "not subscribed" vs. "unsubscribed" and how really, more robust datatypes need to be used to capture all the variations.

[Carrie_Chandle1]

Edited reply 🙂

Hey there! Assuming that a lead passes through the second or third steps (both of which are successes) before hitting the "lead not accepted" step, then yes, they will still be a success when they get to the fourth step.

Something to look into is removing lead validity from the program status list. It looks like this is a form-based program, so by someone filling out the form they are technically a success based on the program goal, but they as a person end up not being valid - and the validity/non-validity of leads should hopefully be part of your lead process that is managed at a more global level instead of the program level.

[SanfordWhiteman]

@Carrie_Chandle1 they don't actually need to be removed — see my resp.

You don't want to overuse Change Program Success, but here it makes sense.