Managing flows

Once a flow is published it keeps working on its own: every time its trigger event happens, a contact enters and follows the path. Managing it over time means two places in the dashboard. The flows list, in Marketing › Flows, shows every flow in the project with its state and figures, and lets you enable, disable, duplicate or archive a flow without opening it. The header of each flow, at the top of its page, holds the controls for that one flow: rename, archive, its recent activity and the switch that opens or closes its entry.

The most important idea on this page is the difference between closing the entry and stopping the contacts already inside. Pausing a flow only does the first: no one new enters, but whoever is already on the path carries on to the end. Stopping them is a separate action, Cancel executions, explained below.

The flows list

The list opens in Marketing › Flows. Each row is one flow; selecting its name opens the flow on its canvas. Once a flow is open, its name in the breadcrumb at the top opens a Recent flows list, to jump to another flow without going back to the list.

Active and archived flows

An icon toggle on the right of the toolbar switches between Active (every flow that isn't archived, whether its entry is on or off) and Archived. The list opens on Active. An archived flow only appears in the Archived view; when there are none, that view says No archived flows with a Back to active flows button.

Filter, views and columns

• Filter flows searches by name.
• The filters Trigger, Publish state, Goal, Activity and Status narrow the list. Each one only offers the options that at least one of your flows matches, with how many flows match each. Trigger lists the events your flows start on; Goal lists each goal event, Goal step in the flow and No goal set; Activity separates flows with activations in the last 30 days, flows without them and flows Not measured yet; Status (Active view only) separates Enabled from Disabled flows.
• Saved views change which columns the table shows, each one tuned to a question: Default view (a general summary), Engagement (sends, delivery, clicks and opt-outs), Sales (conversions, revenue, cost and return), Audience (how many people entered, were messaged, engaged, met the goal and converted), Goals (goal definition and goal figures) and Set up (how each flow is configured). All views sort the newest flows first.
• The column chooser adds or removes any single column, and the table menu (⋮) exports the list to CSV or copies it to the clipboard.

The Set up view is useful to review every flow's configuration in one table: its status, publish state, trigger, goal, number of Steps, Max. duration (the longest a contact can stay in the flow; see Limits and safeguards), Max. activation hold ("The longest a contact waits to enter when this flow gets a traffic spike. It never delays a message…"; see The trigger: who enters and when), the Live version and when it was Published. In the Trigger column, "· filtered" after the event name means the trigger has event conditions.

What every metric column means (activations, contacted runs, goal rate, conversions, cost and the rest) is explained in Flow analytics. A column's description opens from the menu on its header, not on hover.

What each row shows

• The switch (in the Active view) turns the flow's entry on or off; see Pause and enable enrollment. While nothing is published, it is disabled and its tooltip explains why: "To enable this flow, first publish a version: to everyone or as a 10% test".
• Preview flow (the eye icon, on hover) opens a read-only diagram of the flow: the version that is live (Live version · v6, for example) or, if nothing is published, the draft. Flows with nothing built yet don't have it.
• Publish state says where the flow stands in publishing: Published, Unpublished changes, Draft, Empty, and Live test · 10% while a test runs. A flow can show two of them at once. The meaning of each is in Testing, publishing and versions.
• Status says whether the flow takes contacts: Enabled, Disabled or Archived.
• ⋮ opens the flow's actions. They depend on its state:

Flow state	Actions in ⋮
Published, entry on	Edit, Duplicate, Disable, Archive
Published, entry off	Edit, Duplicate, Enable, Archive
Never published (draft or empty)	Edit, Duplicate, Archive
Archived	Duplicate

Rename isn't in this menu: it is in the flow's header. There is no delete action; see Archive a flow.

Above the table

In the Active view, a Last 30 days summary sits above the table, with cards that follow the saved view: for example, Active flows and activations in the default view, or Total flows, Active flows, Unpublished changes and No goal set in Set up. The summary can be collapsed, and under its title it says how many flows have data ("3 of 5 flows with data") and how long ago the oldest figure was computed; the figures leave out flows nobody has opened yet (see the — note above). For people who can edit flows, that summary gives way to a strip called Flows for the events you receive whenever there are templates that fit the events your project receives and haven't been used yet (up to three); see Flow templates.

A project with no flows yet shows the template gallery first, when there are templates for its events, and then No flows yet with the New flow button. How to create a flow is in Building a flow.

Pause and enable enrollment

A flow's entry decides whether new contacts can start it. In the flow's header, next to its name, the switch reads Enrollment active while the entry is open and Enrollment paused while it is closed. Its action is Pause enrollment or Activate enrollment.

In the flows list, the same action is the row switch and the Disable and Enable items of the ⋮ menu. Pause enrollment and Disable are the same action under two names: both close the entry, and the flow's header then reads Enrollment paused.

The switch only appears once the flow has something published. The first time you publish, the entry opens by itself; a flow you paused stays paused when you publish a new version. That is explained in Testing, publishing and versions.

Pause enrollment

1. 1

   Turn the switch off

   In the flow's header, select the Enrollment active switch.

2. 2

   Confirm

   The panel asks Disable this flow?: "No new contacts enter; those already inside finish their journey, and you're still charged for the messages they send." Select Disable. The switch shows Pausing enrollment… and then Enrollment paused.

From the list, the row switch and Disable act straight away, without a confirmation. Enabling a flow, from either place, doesn't ask for confirmation either.

What pausing does:

• No new contact enters, in any version of the flow: neither the Live version nor a live test.
• Contacts already inside carry on. Each one keeps going along the path of the version they entered with: their waits run out, their branches are decided and their messages are sent, until they reach the end, meet an exit, or are cancelled.
• Events that arrive while the entry is closed are lost for this flow. They are not kept to be processed later: enabling the flow again doesn't make those contacts enter. They also leave no row in Didn't enter, so the flow's activity shows nothing about them (see Monitoring a flow).
• The flow stops counting as active for your plan's limit, and that slot can be taken by another flow; see Active flows limit.

The messages sent to contacts who finish their journey after a pause are charged like any other flow message.

Enable enrollment

Turn the header switch on, or select Enable in the list. From then on, every contact who does the trigger event and meets the entry conditions enters the version that is live. Events from the time the flow was paused are not replayed.

If your plan's limit of active flows is full, the switch can't be turned on; see Active flows limit.

The flow's status, in the list and in the header

The list and the flow's page name the same situations with slightly different words:

Situation	Status in the list	Badge in the flow's header	Header switch
Nothing published yet	Disabled	Draft	Not shown
Published, entry open	Enabled	Active	Enrollment active
Published, entry closed	Disabled	Enrollment paused	Enrollment paused
Archived	Archived	Archived	Archived. Read only.

A flow that has never been published reads Disabled in the list although nobody switched it off: it simply hasn't started. On its own page it reads Draft.

Why does my flow say Enrollment paused or Disabled?

A flow's entry is closed for one of these reasons:

• Someone on the team paused it, with the header switch, the row switch or Disable. The panel doesn't show who did it or when.
• It has never been published. The list reads Disabled and the header reads Draft; nothing opens the entry until a version is published.
• It was published for the first time while the project was at its active-flows limit. The version is published but the entry stays closed, with no other warning. The switch's tooltip gives the reason; see Active flows limit.
• It is archived. The list reads Archived and the header Archived. Read only.; see Archive a flow.
• It is a new flow that hasn't been published yet. A flow created with Duplicate, from a template, or by an app or AI assistant through the API starts unpublished, with its entry off.

Instasent doesn't switch a flow off by itself. When the account runs out of funds, entry slows down but the header still reads Enrollment active, even though the email and SMS your team receives say the flows have stopped; see Limits and safeguards.

Cancel executions

Cancel executions is the action that stops contacts who are already inside a flow. Every contact who enters a flow starts a run (the panel also calls it an execution) on the version that was live at that moment, and keeps that version until the end, even after you publish a new one or pause the flow. Cancelling ends those runs where they are: no further steps and no further messages.

If a flow is sending something wrong right now:

1. Pause enrollment in the flow's header. No one new enters any version of the flow, including a live test.
2. Cancel the executions of every version with people inside: Live, the live test if there is one, and any archived version whose count in Archived versions isn't zero. The steps are below.
3. Fix the draft, try it with Test run, publish it and turn the entry back on: a flow you paused stays paused when you publish.

There is no "unpublish" button that stops a version. Publish and Republish only change which version new contacts enter; the contacts already inside a bad version keep it until you cancel their executions, and a message already on its way still goes out.

Pausing first stops the wrong messages soonest. When the problem is in a later step and you'd rather keep new contacts coming in, publish the fix first and cancel the old version afterwards, as in the example below: that order loses the fewest contacts.

Executions are cancelled per version, from the version's canvas:

1. 1

   Open the version

   Open the flow and select the tab of the version whose contacts you want to stop: Live, the live test, or an older version from Archived versions in the version strip. The archived versions list shows, for each one, how many contacts are still inside, so you can see which old versions still have people on them.

2. 2

   Find the counter

   At the top left of the canvas, the counter N inside now shows how many contacts are waiting somewhere in that version. Next to it there is a small ⊘ button, whose tooltip reads Cancel executions. It only appears while someone is inside, and only for people who can edit flows.

3. 3

   Confirm

   The panel asks Cancel the executions of v6? (with the version's number) and explains: "2 executions of v6 will be cancelled: contacts stop where they are. A step already sending finishes. This can't be undone." Select Cancel executions, or Keep them to leave everything as it is.

If the version still takes new contacts (it is Live or a live test, and the entry is open), the dialog adds: "New contacts keep entering while enrollment is on: pause enrollment first to stop them too."

While the cancellation runs, the version's toolbar shows its progress ("Cancelling the executions of v6: 15 cancelled so far"), and a message confirms the total when it ends. If the panel says a cancellation stopped before the end, with how many runs are still in progress, cancel again to finish. If nobody was inside, the panel says the version has no executions running, and if someone else already started a cancellation of that version, it says so instead of starting another.

What cancelling does to each run:

• The contact stops where they are. A contact in a wait doesn't continue when the wait would have ended; a contact about to start is stopped too.
• A step that is already sending finishes. A message already on its way can still arrive; nothing after it runs.
• Only the runs that exist at that moment are cancelled. If the entry is open, contacts who enter afterwards start new runs as usual.
• Other versions are not touched. Cancelling v6 leaves the contacts in v7 alone.
• It can't be undone, and contacts are not moved to another version. A cancelled contact doesn't continue on the new version: they would only enter again if they do the trigger event again.
• The run is marked as cancelled. In the flow's activity it shows Canceled, and its contact journey says "The run was ended manually." on the step where it stopped. Cancelled runs are counted as cancelled in each step's figures.

A few contacts stop within seconds; a version with many contacts inside takes longer, and the progress line tells you how far it has got.

Messages that had already been sent, including one that a sending step finishes, are charged as usual. Cancelled contacts don't receive anything else, so nothing more is charged for them.

Cancel one contact's run

To stop a single contact instead of a whole version, open their run from the flow's activity and select Cancel execution in the contact journey (where to find it is in Monitoring a flow). The panel asks Cancel this execution?: "The contact stops here and won't continue the flow. This can't be undone." The result is the same as a bulk cancellation, for that run only.

Example: a reminder with the wrong discount code

An Abandoned cart flow waits for the customer, sends a first reminder and, if the customer doesn't come back, waits one day and sends a second message with a discount code. In version v6 that code is wrong, and 40 contacts are already waiting for the second message.

1. Fix the code in the Build tab, select Save changes and publish with Publish to everyone. Version v7 becomes Live and v6 is archived. From now on, new abandoned carts enter v7 with the right code.
2. The 40 contacts in v6 would still receive the wrong code tomorrow, because each contact keeps the version they entered with. Open Archived versions › v6: the counter reads 40 inside now.
3. Select ⊘ (Cancel executions) and confirm. Those 40 runs end without the second message, and their journey says "The run was ended manually."

Publishing the fix first and cancelling afterwards is the order that loses the fewest contacts: v6 no longer takes anyone new, so the cancellation reaches everyone who could receive the wrong code, while new carts are already on v7. The cancelled contacts won't get the corrected message either; they would only enter again with a new abandoned cart.

Rename a flow

In the flow's header, select the pencil (Rename). The Rename flow dialog has one field, Flow name. Renaming doesn't change how the flow works. An archived flow can't be renamed: the pencil isn't shown on it.

Your contacts never see the name: as the dialog says, "Only you and your team see it. It's also sent as utm-campaign in this flow's links." The flow's name travels as the utm-campaign value of the links in its messages, so a new name applies to the links sent from then on; links already sent keep the old one. In a web analytics tool, the same flow will then appear under two campaign names, before and after the change.

Duplicate a flow

Duplicate, in the ⋮ menu of a row, creates a new flow called "name (copy)" and opens it in the editor. It is available for archived flows too, which is how an archived flow is reused.

• The copy takes the flow's draft (its Build tab) if there is one, and otherwise the Live version: trigger, limits, exits and every step.
• The copy is a new, unpublished flow: its entry is off, it has no versions, no activity and no figures of its own. Nothing reaches contacts until someone publishes it.
• To duplicate several flows at once, select their rows and use Duplicate in the bar that appears, up to three at a time ("Up to 3 flows at a time").

A duplicate is a good starting point for a variant (another language, another segment) or for a large rework that you want to build apart. Before publishing both the original and the copy, keep in mind that when two flows start with the same event, both flows let the contact in, and each one sends its own messages; see Limits and safeguards.

Archive a flow

Archiving retires a flow for good. Select the archive icon (Archive) in the flow's header, or Archive in the ⋮ menu of its row. The panel asks Are you sure you want to continue?: "Archive "Abandoned cart"? It stops admitting new contacts; those already inside finish their journey, and you're still charged for the messages they send." Select Yes.

What archiving does:

• The entry closes permanently. The Live version and any live test are retired, and no new contact enters.
• Contacts already inside finish their journey, as when you pause. To stop them too, cancel the executions of the version, as described in Cancel executions.
• The flow moves to the Archived view of the list and becomes read-only: its page shows Archived. Read only. in place of the switch. You can still open it and duplicate it.
• It stops counting as an active flow for your plan, and a template you used to create it shows as available again in the gallery; see Flow templates.

Messages sent to contacts who finish their journey after the flow is archived are charged as usual.

Contacts finish on the version they entered. A version that has been archived for about three months, counted from the day it was archived, is closed by the platform; those runs end as Canceled, with the reason explained in Monitoring a flow.

What each action does to the contacts inside

Every action on a flow or a version changes who enters from then on; only one of them stops the contacts who are already inside.

Action	New contacts	Contacts already inside	Messages to those inside
Publish to everyone	Enter the new version	Stay on the version they entered, now archived	Sent and charged
Promote to 100%	Enter the promoted copy	Finish on the test or Live version they entered	Sent and charged
Archive test	Enter Live (nobody, if there is no Live)	Test contacts finish on the test version	Sent and charged
Republish › Publish to everyone	Enter the republished copy	Finish on the version they entered	Sent and charged
Edit as draft	No change	No change	No change
Pause enrollment	Nobody enters, in any version	Carry on to the end	Sent and charged
Archive the flow	Nobody enters, for good	Carry on to the end	Sent and charged
Cancel executions	Keep entering while the entry is open	Stop where they are	Only what was already sent, plus a step already sending
Changing to a plan with a lower limit	No change: no flow is switched off	No change	No change

The new-contacts column assumes the entry is open; while it is paused, nobody enters whatever you publish. How each publishing action works is in Testing, publishing and versions.

Active flows limit

Your plan sets how many flows can be active at the same time in each project. Active means the flow's entry is open: the flows whose header reads Active and whose list status is Enabled. Flows with the entry paused, drafts that were never published and archived flows don't count. The limit applies per project and comes from your organization's plan; the plan comparison in the panel lists it as Active flows per project.

The panel tells you where you stand in the tooltip of the flow's switch while the entry is paused:

• With room left: "You have N of M flows active in this project."
• At the limit, the switch is disabled: "Your plan allows M active flows in this project. Turn another one off to activate this one."
• Above the limit, which can happen after changing to a plan with a lower limit: "You have N active flows, above the M your plan allows. Turn some off to activate this one."

How it behaves:

• The limit is checked when a flow is switched on. Changing to a plan with a lower limit doesn't switch off any flow that is already running; you just can't activate another one until you are under the limit.
• Publishing at the limit doesn't open the entry. A first publish normally opens the entry by itself, but if the project is already at the limit the version is published and the entry stays Enrollment paused, with no other warning. The reason is in the switch's tooltip.
• Pausing frees a slot, and another flow can take it. If you pause a flow and then activate a different one, the first may not be able to come back until you pause something else.
• Enabling from the list isn't checked in advance. At the limit, the row switch or Enable is refused with an error.

For example, a project that has already used every active slot of its plan, with Abandoned cart, Welcome new contacts and Thank you for your order among its active flows, publishes a new flow, Ask for a review, for the first time. The version is published, but its header reads Enrollment paused and the switch can't be turned on; its tooltip says the plan's limit is reached. Pausing Thank you for your order frees a slot, and Ask for a review can then be activated.

Who can do what

Changing a flow requires a role that can edit automations: Owner, Full access or Marketing. Team members who can only view projects (for example, with the Viewer role) can open every flow, its versions, its activity and its figures, but the panel doesn't offer them New flow, Templates, Test run, Publish, the entry switch, Duplicate, Archive, Rename, Cancel executions or the actions on a single run. If those controls are missing for you, ask someone with one of those roles; roles are explained in Team.

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