Manage people in a flow

Who can use this: Any team member

Available on: Gong Engage

Ideal for: Sales rep, Sales manager

Pause someone's flow when the timing is wrong, resume it when they are ready to hear from you again, and remove them when the outreach no longer fits. Flows also pause and stop without you touching them, so someone's status can change on its own, including when they are active in more than one flow or when their record is deleted from your CRM.

Pause, resume, or remove someone

Pausing, resuming, and removing all sit on the person's flow status, so you reach them from the same place. Pausing holds the flow at the step the person has reached, resuming picks it up from that same step, and removing ends the flow for them.

To pause, resume, or remove someone:

1. From the left sidebar, click Assets, and select Flows.

2. Click the flow, and open the People tab.

3. Click the person's flow status.

4. Click Pause flow, Resume flow, or Remove.

A paused person shows a Paused label on their flow status, and the label tells you who paused the flow and when.

Note:

Removing someone stops every remaining step in that flow, and emails that have already been sent cannot be recalled. Add the person back later and they start from the step you select, which is step 1 unless you change it.

Note:

There is no one-action way to move someone to a different flow, and Gong never moves people between flows automatically. Remove them from the flow they are in, then add them to the new one. Learn more about adding people to a flow in Engage.

Tip:

A person's flow status carries the same controls wherever it appears, including the People and Accounts pages. From a flow to-do, click the More actions icon, and select Resume flow for this person or Remove person from flow.

Link a flow to a deal

Linking ties a person's flow to a specific deal, and you set it while you add them to the flow. Both the single-person and the bulk route offer it.

To link a flow to a deal:

1. From the left sidebar, click Engagement, and select People.

2. Start adding people to the flow, in bulk or one at a time:

   • In bulk, select the people you want to add, click Add to flow in the bulk actions bar, and choose the flow.

   • For a single person, click their flow status, and choose the flow.

3. Click Link flow to deal.

4. Select the deal you want each person's flow linked to.

5. Click Save.

Reassign a flow and its to-dos

Reassigning hands a flow and all its remaining steps, including any upcoming auto emails, to another team member. Reassign when a rep leaves the team, changes territory, or is unavailable. One-off to-dos and Gong-recommended to-dos are never included.

Required permissions:

Reassign flows and to-dos, for non-managers only.

Managers can reassign without it.

There are two routes, and the next step in the flow decides which one you need.

Reassign from the To-dos page

Reassigning from the To-dos page covers open to-dos and moves both the flow and its future to-dos in one action. A scheduled auto email creates no to-do until it fails, so it cannot be reassigned here.

To reassign flow to-dos from To-dos:

1. From the left sidebar, click To-dos.

2. Click the More actions icon at the top right, and select Reassign flow to-dos.

3. Choose whether you are reassigning every open to-do or a selection, using the filters.

4. Select the new assignee, and confirm.

Reassign from inside the flow

Take this route when the next step is a scheduled auto email, since that step has no to-do to act on. Reassigning here transfers ownership of the whole flow, so the auto email sends under the new assignee.

To reassign a flow from inside the flow:

1. From the left sidebar, click Assets, and select Flows.

2. Click the flow, and open the People tab.

3. Click the flow status of the person whose flow you want to reassign.

4. Next to the flow you want to reassign, select the option to reassign it.

5. Choose the new assignee.

6. Click Save.

View flow history

Flow history is a chronological log of everything that happened to one person in a flow: when they were added, when each step ran or failed, why an automatic email failed to send, and why their flow started, paused, or stopped. Check it before you remove or re-add someone, so you know what they have already received.

To view flow history:

1. From the left sidebar, click Assets, and select Flows.

2. Click the flow, and open the People tab.

3. Find the person, and click View flow history.

Tip:

The People tab lists everyone currently or previously in the flow, sorted by the most recently added, and you can search it for a specific contact or lead.

Why a flow pauses or stops

Several events pause a flow automatically, and others end it altogether, so a person's status can change without anyone acting on it. Flow history for that person records which event applied.

A flow pauses when:

• A meeting is booked with the person in the flow. Gong pauses the flow automatically and creates a to-do, and you can resume the flow manually.

• An email sent from the flow bounces, depending on the ruleset applied to the flow. The same ruleset decides whether you also get a to-do to update the email address and resume the flow.

• The person replies to a flow email within 14 days. Automated replies do not count.

• A team member pauses it manually.

• You call the person from the flow and they call you back.

Someone is removed from a flow, and their flow stops, when:

• A team member removes them manually.

• An email sent from the flow bounces, depending on the ruleset applied to the flow.

• They reply by email and the flow assignee answers that reply.

• Someone marks them as do not contact.

• Their flow stays paused for more than 30 days.

• An overdue flow to-do expires. Gong dismisses the to-do and removes the person from the flow, and their flow status reads To-do expired.

• The flow is deleted in Gong.

• They are deleted from your CRM.

A reply followed by your own reply removes someone because Gong reads the two events together: their reply pauses the flow, and once the flow assignee replies, Gong treats the conversation as active and takes the person out of the flow.

When someone is in more than one flow

A person can be active in several flows at once when your company allows it, and a pause does not spread across all of them by default. Bounced email, Email response, and Meeting booked to-dos pause only the flow the event came from. The to-do itself offers to pause every flow that person is in, or every flow for everyone at their account. The same holds for a call: when someone returns a call you made from a flow, only the flow the call came from pauses.

To pause flows for everyone at an account:

1. From the left sidebar, click To-dos.

2. Find the flow to-do for the person who responded.

3. Click the More actions icon, and select Pause flow for all account contacts.

Note:

Pausing at account level covers contacts, not leads.

Note:

Emails already scheduled to go out from another flow to an address that bounced still send to that address unless you act before the scheduled send time. The bounce marks the address as invalid, so the To field shows it as invalid when you start a new draft to it from another flow.

Out of office replies

Every ruleset includes a rule Gong provides for out of office replies. When someone sends one, the current to-do for every flow that person is in is snoozed until their return date, so follow-ups resume only once they are expected back. Their flows are not paused.

Gong does not always find a return date in the reply. Nothing is snoozed in that case, and the flows continue as originally scheduled, even if the only replies are repeated automated out of office messages.

What happens when someone is deleted from your CRM

Deleting a contact or lead in your CRM does not necessarily break the flow they were in. Gong checks for another contact or lead in your CRM with the same email address, then acts on what it finds:

• With exactly one match, Gong replaces the deleted person with that contact or lead, and the flow continues without interruption.

• With several matches or none, Gong stops the flow.

Replacing the person this way avoids unnecessary interruptions when records are merged in your CRM, and it saves manual cleanup.

Frequently asked questions