While editing an active automation, it’s important to understand that certain types of changes may lead to logical errors in its execution. In this guide, we’ll review the most common types of edits and their potential consequences within the automation flow.
The core principle of automation logic is the “waterfall” structure. A contact begins its journey from the very top (the Segment block) and moves downwards through the defined path, executing tasks in the specified order. If a contact has already progressed past a certain point in the flow, it will not be affected by changes made to any blocks above that point.
Adding a Sender Profile to an Active Automation
Once automation is launched for the first time, the system immediately begins distributing uploaded contacts across the existing sender profiles. Each contact is linked to a specific sender profile and, under standard conditions, does not switch profiles later.
Therefore, if a new sender profile is added to an active automation, contacts uploaded prior to this addition will not see the new profile and will continue performing actions assigned based on the original distribution.
However, new contacts added after the sender profile is linked will be distributed among all available profiles.
You can still manually redistribute previously uploaded contacts. To do this, you need to set the distribution type of the sender profile block to 'Random Rotation'.
Use the “Restart from Top” function to restart all 'In Progress' contacts from your chosen node.
More details on distribution types and restarting contacts can be found in this manual.
Note: We recommend not restarting contacts that have already moved past the Send Connection Request step. Instead, focus on redistributing only those contacts that haven’t yet completed key actions, such as sending a connection request.
Removing a Sender Profile from an Active Automation
When a sender profile is removed from an active automation, the system will prompt you to choose one of two actions:
Cancel tasks for this profile: all actions linked to this sender profile in the automation will be cancelled.
Keep tasks active: no new contacts will be assigned to this profile, but existing contacts already linked to it will complete all planned tasks.
Editing Existing Steps or Adding New Steps in an Active Automation
Due to the waterfall logic, contacts that have already progressed deeper into the automation will not recognize any new node that was added above their current step. In contrast, new contacts added later will follow the updated path, including the new step.
Example: If you add a Visit Profile node above step #2 (Send Connection Request), contacts in step #2 with 'In Progress' status will be able to execute the Visit Profile action. However, contacts already in step #6 (Connection Request Accepted) will not see or execute this new step, as they have moved further down the flow.
When editing an existing node, any contacts currently in 'In Progress' status will still execute the task according to its original settings.
Example: If you change the Time Delay node from a 7-day wait to a 2-day wait, contacts already in In Progress status at this step will continue waiting for 7 days from when they entered the node. New contacts entering later will follow the new 2-day delay rule.
Deleting Steps in Active Automation
When any node is deleted from an automation, all contacts with 'In Progress' status at that node will lose their reference point. As a result, these contacts will be marked as Cancelled or Failed and will not continue along the automation path.