Relevance of Change Program Success Flow Step

[Aditi_D]

Hi,
I am new to learning Marketo. Need help understanding the relevance of "Change Program Success" flow step and also to clarify a doubt regarding the same. 

Question : I am running a smart campaign in a program having a channel with the following statuses :

Opened, Clicked, Engaged

where I am trying the "Change Program Status" and "Change Program Success" flow steps to have a better understanding on these concepts.  If using the  "change program status" I am giving the status as "clicked" (which is not a success step) and in the "Change Program Success" flow step , I am giving success as true then Isn't it wrong as clicked is not a success for this program. When I go and see the status of a lead in the members tab the status is clicked but the success is also captured. Help me understand its relevance. 

[SanfordWhiteman]

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If using the  "change program status" I am giving the status as "clicked" (which is not a success step) and in the "Change Program Success" flow step , I am giving success as true then Isn't it wrong as clicked is not a success for this program. When I go and see the status of a lead in the members tab the status is clicked but the success is also captured. Help me understand its relevance. 

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Don't Change Program Success here. Use only the Change Program Status and its implicit Success at the Channel level.

[Aditi_D]

Hi @SanfordWhiteman ,
Thank you for the answer. Here, I know I can choose the status(engaged, which is a success) using "Change Program Status" but I am trying to understand the importance  of "Change Program Success" flow step.  I am looking for the scenarios where "Change Program Success" could be of better use than the "Change Program Status".

Regards,

Aditi

[SanfordWhiteman]

You're better off forgetting that option exists. It only leads to confusion and disrupts reporting. Sometimes, it's useful for backfill.

You want to concentrate on setting the Success statuses correctly for your Channel. At a glance, you should be able to see who has Success (green checkmark) and assume they have one of the Success statuses. If you force Success, this assumption is broken.

[Aditi_D]

Thank you @SanfordWhiteman . I got all my doubts cleared on this. Thanks for the support.

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

Sure, can you mark my answer as the Solution please?

[Ryland1]

Hi Sanford,

Thanks for your input, always find it so useful.
You mentioned this can throw off reporting. Can you please elaborate on how this could negatively affect reporting? I'd like to be able to communicate this to my team who sometimes uses program success is True. I am thinking it could throw off reporting because the reporting looks at program success by how many people achieved success status. Is it because if we force a program success for a lead who did not actually achieve a program status of success, it wont capture it in the report since they are not meeting the channel success status? 
Thanks!

[SanfordWhiteman]

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You mentioned this can throw off reporting. Can you please elaborate on how this could negatively affect reporting? I'd like to be able to communicate this to my team who sometimes uses program success is True. I am thinking it could throw off reporting because the reporting looks at program success by how many people achieved success status. Is it because if we force a program success for a lead who did not actually achieve a program status of success, it wont capture it in the report since they are not meeting the channel success status?

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Correct! It makes the idea of a "status goal" meaningless. Because the goal can now be achieved without the status.

[Ryland1]

Ah perfect! Thank you so much Sanford.