Entry and Exit Criteria

Entry and Exit Criteria are useful automation tools that help ensure that contacts and accounts begin or drop out of plays when desired or necessary.

Entry Criteria

Once you have created a play, navigate to the Steps tab. Your Entry Settings will be listed at the top of the editor. 

Here, you will be presented with the option to configure the entry settings by clicking "New Criteria".

Note: The Target type of the Play (Account versus Contact) determines whether the entry criteria lets you choose Account Segments or Contact Segments

1.  Choose which operator you would like to use to trigger the Play for this Account or Contact

• Enters - An Account/Contact will begin the Play when it enters the selected Segment
• Is In - Any Account/Contact in a Segment will begin the Play
• Exits - The Play begins when an Account/Contact exits the selected Segment

2. Select which segment the Account or Contact needs to exit/enter/be in.

• If this is a Global Play, the entry criteria must be a Global Segment.

3. Private Plays Only - If this is a Private Play, you can decide between entering just your owned Accounts, or also Accounts in your domain (owned by users who report to you)

4. 'Enters' criteria only - If you choose the 'Enters' operator, you can check this box to go ahead and add all Accounts or Contacts that are currently in the target segment.

Click "Save" in the bottom right in order to save the criteria.

You can add multiple criteria if desired but they will be considered 'OR' filters (as opposed to 'AND'). If you want AND conditions, you can make a single segment with all those conditions and use that segment as your audience criteria.

Note: If no entry criteria are set, the only way for Accounts or Contacts to enter the Play is to manually add them.

Exit Criteria 

Exit Criteria work the same way, but this time you are determining when someone exits the Play. If no Exit Criteria are set, then the Contact/Account will remain in the Play until all steps are completed. To create Exit Criteria, navigate to "Automatic Exit Criteria" under the steps tab and click "New Criteria". The steps are the same as described above for Entry Criteria.

You can set two types of Exit Criteria:

• Goals define the ultimate purpose of the Play. If the Play is designed to get contacts to become more active in the product, then leaving a segment for "Disengaged Contacts" could mean that the Play has worked and the goal is met -- so there is no need for the contact to continue the Play.
• No Longer Qualify allows you to remove a contact from a Play for reasons other than meeting the goal. For example, if a play is set to deliver messages to Admin users, someone who is no longer an Admin would fall out of the segment and be disqualified.

Exit criteria help you remove contacts from Plays when they no longer belong. The two types of Exit Criteria allow you to analyze the success of your Play more accurately by differentiating between contacts who exit for meeting the goal (success), versus contacts who are no longer qualified (not relevant to the performance of the Play).