Using Programs within Engagement Streams

[Mr_Dee]

Hi,

I've been successfully using Engagement streams to deliver emails and I'm now looking at a slightly different use case and I am finding the logic around adding programs in streams somewhat confusing. I have read lots of other questions and the documentation around this topic but would appreciate some more clarity.

Point 1:  In the documentation for this area, the guide states the following:

What happens when you use a program in a stream?

When using a nested program, the decision to send an email to a person is based on the program membership and program ID.

• If you’re not a member of a program, you will receive any emails that are part of the program once
• If you’re a member of the program, you won’t receive the email
• If you are no longer a member but received the email earlier through that program, you won’t receive the email

Am I interpreting this correctly in that if I have a program in stream and the membership criteria (Smart list) for that program is met, the person will NOT receive any emails that are part of that program? That seems very counterintuitive.

Point 2: My use case is simply sending a 5 email nurture campaign to a target group, but I need to check that the status of the person (from a Salesforce field) hasn't changed before each email send. I was originally going to do this using a program in the nurture stream. But, having looked at it, it seems simpler to use a Batch program sat outside of the stream that simply checks this say once a day and then if it find people where the status has changed, they can be moved to 'paused' in the Stream and moved into an empty stream to keep them grouped (if they have been paused, they will never come back into the nurture stream. Is this a a valid way to do this or are there unforeseen pitfalls?

Thanks!

[jsiebert]

@Mr_Dee - No, the campaign hasn't run yet so they won't be counted as members of your program.

Keep in mind that in order for your campaign to run in a nested program, you need to include the Member of Engagement Program filter in your smart list. Your leads will not become a member of your program until they run through the cast. If they do not meet the criteria, they will move on to the next piece of content in the stream for the following cast. 

However, for your use case I would consider just using setting up a Data Value Changes trigger using the Salesforce field you mentioned as a transition rule to automatically pull them into the 'Paused' cast until the data value changes again. I like to avoid nested programs as often as possible because it can get pretty confusing 🙂 

[Ishita_Chawra]

Hi, 

Yes, Changing the nurture qualification can be achieved the way you described:

1. Run a batch campaign to check the member qualifications

2. create and run a nurture operation campaign to Pause if they don't satisfy the eligibility of the nurture

You can run report to see the paused members. 

[uditmathur]

HI @Mr_Dee ,

Its seems you are getting confused between the Engagement program & program within engagement program, when a program is within a stream of an engagement program & someone meets the SL criteria on the default program for the 1st time he will be sent the email as in the Flow step of the default program. 

So to correct your interpretation " if I have a program in stream and the membership criteria (Smart list) for that program is met, the person will NOT receive any emails that are part of that program? " YOUR LEAD WILL RECEIVE THE EMAIL for the 1st time he qualifies & will continue to receive all emails in the Flow step of this default program. If it has only 1 email your lead will receive & then proceed to receive all other emails OUTSIDE of the default program but in the stream.

A word of Caution here - If there is any email which is in the stream & same email is also within the default program flow step than this email will be sent twice for any lead who qualifies the default program for the 1st time. 

For this i will second your approach to create a Batch campaign.