Queries as Exclusion List

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If Journey Orchestrator is moving towards allowing for Bionic Queries to be created outside of a Program, I'd like to request that BQ can also be used as an exclusion list. Every program I run, I have to include a dataset task that looks for anyone that already entered that program in the last 180 days, then merge it, then transformation task the results. Every. Program. It's really not intuitive to build exclusion criteria into a query.





It's an extra step that would be much easier to solve for if I had a separate query 'Entered Progam in X days', and then select that list under exclusions (which is how any other email tool works).



I agree. I was just talking about this limitation yesterday with a colleague. We use a CSV exclusion list on a few Programs, but it doesn't automatically updated. We have had to manually generate a new CSV and load it into the Program. It would be easier and more reliable to have the Program run the necessary query to update the exclusion list.




Hi Kelly,





It sounds like you need to only allow participants if they were not already part of that program in the past 180 days, is that right?





If so, this capability exists today: https://support.gainsight.com/Journey_Orchestrator_and_Email/Programs/Adding_Participants_to_a_Program#Filter_Criteria_on_Participants





Look to the Advanced criteria shown below in number 3:










Hi Dan, uniqueness criteria only matters for that specific program. However, there are many use cases where you need to stop a program to make an adjustment and relaunch it, and you want to be sure not to bring in any contacts that entered the previous version.




+1, would love to be able to have a dynamic exclusion list.




Running into this now. What about having an option to say Don't Pull in Participants from, and then, have a multi-select dropdown with all the programs so that you could easily exclude them?




Another solution could be an exclusion CSV uploading to the newly created program from the Participant Activity. The question I am trying to answer is if I can delete the exclusions after say 180 days in the program, allowing these participants to filter back in if they meet the existing criteria.


Another solution could be an exclusion CSV uploading to the newly created program from the Participant Activity. The question I am trying to answer is if I can delete the exclusions after say 180 days in the program, allowing these participants to filter back in if they meet the existing criteria.

So I did just test this. Although it is not ideal.

You can build a CSV inclusive of all members you want to exlcude for a period of time, set a reminder in your calendar (ex. 365 days in the future) to delete the exclusion list. Now these previously excluded members can enter the program again. I find building the a report containing multiple program titles and the participants is easier than modifying than entire query.


This is becoming a growing need - as we are building out more programs, we have to build program suppression into the query.

I’m hitting the 15 step limit due to this - due to having to include a dataset for the sole purpose of excluding via transform. I really wish I could just have a query as a suppression list.


Any update to this? We’ll be enabling CSMs with the option to unsubscribe accounts on a program by program basis by way of CTA. I’ll have to build this dataset and frequency dataset into every program in order to exclude them. It would be much more efficient to simply have datasets under Exclusions than to have to built into existing and future programs. This is a desperately needed function.


Hi Dan, uniqueness criteria only matters for that specific program. However, there are many use cases where you need to stop a program to make an adjustment and relaunch it, and you want to be sure not to bring in any contacts that entered the previous version.
 

@dan_ahrens this is an important but subtle distinction that we’ll likely be running up at some point in the not too distant future ourselves. A way to do this via the rule, or a mechanism where each program can “talk” to each other so if one participant is enrolled in a program they aren’t pinged by another immediately after.


Hi Dan, uniqueness criteria only matters for that specific program. However, there are many use cases where you need to stop a program to make an adjustment and relaunch it, and you want to be sure not to bring in any contacts that entered the previous version.
 

@dan_ahrens this is an important but subtle distinction that we’ll likely be running up at some point in the not too distant future ourselves. A way to do this via the rule, or a mechanism where each program can “talk” to each other so if one participant is enrolled in a program they aren’t pinged by another immediately after.

In that situation then you might want to consider adding a custom field on the Company Person record to allow different programs to “communicate” with each other. Rules could set the status of that field, which could be a boolean, or more complex variations with alphanumerical codes. 


@dan_ahrens I was actually just thinking about that earlier today and you’re right, that’s how it needs to be done today. Would be nice if the solution was a bit more direct though :)


 having to include a dataset for the sole purpose of excluding via transform

@kelly can you just explain very quickly how you do that?

I’m looking to exclude people from Y program who received X program (its just a single email) in the last Z days. Thank you!


@HollySimmons You’ll need a participant data set and filter the frequency within that dataset (anyone that entered program in the last 30 days). With the merge, retain all records from the primary dataset and when you have your final output you’ll do a transformation task.

In the transformation task add the participant email address to the filter section so participant email = null, that way the final output will only contain contacts that were not participants in the last 30 days.

Be careful in your participant data set that you are pulling in the participant created date and not the program created date.


Ahhh amazing thanks so much @kelly - all makes sense. 

For background (for the original request) we would also love to be able to exclude via rules, we want to run 4 separate programs that have large overlapping audiences but we only want someone to be in one of the programs at any one time. They can re-enter the same program every 90 days, but can enter a different one 30 days after completing another. 


This would be supremely useful as right now we can’t edit an existing program to make small changes like to the Conditional Waits, and instead need to clone and rebuild. This leads to duplicate programs and gets confusing quickly.


What updates are there on movement to simplifying  excluding customers that have already been sent an email from a program? 
It’s not a straight forward process and impacts customer experience. 


Are there any updates to this? And with the migration to the new platform this is somehow marked as a New idea that is > 4 years old?