Query for Housefile Cleaning

Alexandra Silver

Hello,


I read the article "How to identify and clean my housefile of disengaged constituents," (https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/94767?_ga=2.151598334.635074843.1591977400-345892829.1591977400) and have a question about building the query...

The article notes: "OPTIONAL: If you don't have a welcome series email setup, you may want to avoid filtering out newly created constituents that have not yet received an email from your organization. You can add a filter to the Query to exclude new constituents. If you decide to add this option, be sure that your online forms are secured with CAPTCHA, or that you are using two-step verification to avoid emailing spam records."

BUT - What if your welcome series goes out once a week, not instantly/every day? Wouldn’t new records be filtered out even if you have a Welcome Series? In other words, doesn't the query have to include a creation time field regardless?


Thanks in advance for any help!

Alex

Philip Nawrocki

Hi Alexandra Silver‍,


We use this task and our two part welcome series goes every Tuesday and is not affected by this housefile cleaning task.


So this is a task, not a query and not based on creation date. It is actual interactions with the emails that are sent from your org and what the constituent does when its received. If a constituent opens an email within 90 days, they stay active. One thing I had trouble grasping at the time was that 90 days. If a recipient opens an email, the counter goes back to '0', so the group created with this task will fluctuate.


Welcome Series messages usually have the most engagement, so they will be opened and then you get the 90 days out for these interactions and to keep constituents on your housefile. Also, I am assuming your Welcome Series is 1-7 and 8-14 days after creation, no way they would be filtered out yet.


I spent a lot of time on this last year and it took a bit to understand, and I even helped fix an issue with this exact article, but now it's where it should be.


If you have more questions, just fire away.


Phil


 

Alexandra Silver

Thanks so much, Philip! Appreciate your help.


I believe we have the same schedule for our Welcome Series. Just to make sure I understand this - the task will not capture new email addresses that have been in the system for fewer than 90 days?


Best,

Alex

Philip Nawrocki

It's not that they have been in the system for 90 days, it's a rolling 90 days.


But your Welcome Series will not be affected by setting this up.


We have been running this task since April/May of last year with no issues.


Thanks,


Phil

Alexandra Silver

Thank you!