How changes to an Experience affect Participants already enrolled
Dado enables you to iterate and update an Experience, even after you've launched it and Participants have started receiving Tasks and Messages.
There are a few simple rules that determine which changes to an Experience affect Participants (and Supporting Actors) who have already started that Experience.
To put it as simply as possible: changes you make to an Experience generally affect only the future Tasks, Messages and Automations for Participants and Supporting Actors.
1. Completed experiences are never changed
If a Participant has gone through the entire experience, no changes will be made to that Experience. This means, for instance, that if you add new content to a training Experience, the people who completed training last year won't suddenly receive lots of new notifications.
Experiences are considered 'completed' 14 days after the last item in the Timeline is over – regardless of whether all Tasks have been completed. In practice this means:
- The deadline for the last Task in the Timeline was more than 14 days ago
- It does not matter if the Task has been completed or is overdue. Only the deadline is considered.
- The last Message in the Timeline was sent more than 14 days ago
- The last Automation in the Timeline was triggered more than 14 days ago
2. No changes will be made to Automations that have already run
Once an Automation has triggered for a particular Participant, any changes made to the Automation won't affect that Participant.
For example: you have an Automation that adds new hires to 4 onboarding meetings, and you later add a 5th meeting to that Automation. Any Participant for whom the Automation already triggered will not be added to this 5th meeting.
3. Only very limited changes will be made to Tasks and Messages once they are started/sent
After the start-date of a Task/after a Message has been sent, we limit which changes will affect recipients. This is to prevent employees having a confusing experience due to unexpected changes to information they've already received or Tasks they've already been asked to complete.
Changes that WILL NOT affect started Tasks or sent Messages
- Adding Content Blocks and Sub-tasks
- for instance, you can't add an extra Sub-task or an extra text Block
- Changing the definitions of Target Audiences
- for instance, a Target Audience for new hires in the Sales department can't be updated to also include employees in the Business Development department
- Changing which Content Blocks/Sub-tasks appear for which Target Audiences
- for instance, you can't make an existing Sub-task appear for an Audience from whom it was previously hidden
- Changes to the start-date/send-date or the deadline
- for instance, you can't extend the deadline for a Task once it's started
Changes that WILL affect started Tasks or sent Messages:
- Changes to the text, images or links in a Content Block or Sub-task
- for instance, you can
- correct a typo in a text block
- change the image used in an image block
- update the URL for a video in a 'Watch Video' Sub-task
- upload a different document for a 'Read Document' Sub-task
- add another option to a 'Choose Option' Sub-task
- for instance, you can
- Adding or editing a Data Destination for a Sub-task
- Removing a Sub-task or Content Block
- for instance, if you remove a Sub-task from a Task, it will be removed also for Participants who have started the Task
Please note: any changes you make to started Tasks or sent Messages will not trigger the Task/Message to be resent to Participants.
The changes will be visible on the Participant's personal view, but no new emails/Slack messages will be sent.
4. Tasks/Messages/Automations cannot be moved into the past
If you move a Timeline Item to a point earlier on in your Experience, this change will affect Participants differently, depending on where they are in their experience.
Let's say you move a Message from day 25 to day 10.
- For Participants who are not yet at day 10 in their experience: the Message will move to day 10
- For Participants who are already on day 10 or later in their experience: the Message will move to today, and be sent instantly
- For Participants who are already on day 25 or later: the Message has already been sent, so nothing will change here