Manual sequence enrollment schedule

If you choose to manually enroll a contact in a sequence, it will be scheduled in the next available slot in the queue depending on the mailbox. It will follow your send schedule for the time frame and days you've allowed your emails to send.

Manual email steps require explicit action: Manual email steps in sequences will not send automatically. You must manually click "queue to send" for each manual email step before it will send. When a manual email step has a delay configured (e.g., 4 days after the previous step), the manual email task will show as "scheduled" during the delay period and will show as "ready" once the delay has elapsed, at which point you can manually queue it to send.

Important timing note: When you manually enroll a contact outside your sequence's active send hours, the email waits until the schedule opens again rather than sending immediately. For example, if you queue at 8 PM but your send schedule only allows 9 AM-5 PM, the email will be scheduled for 9 AM the next business day (respecting any disabled days). Additionally, manual emails respect the delay timing configured between sequence steps - if a previous task was completed late, the system will still apply the full delay period before scheduling the next manual email.

Important: The actual send time depends on your mailbox backlog. Each mailbox has a daily send limit of 25 emails to protect deliverability. If your assigned mailbox has a large backlog, your manually enrolled sequence may send later than expected, even though it's queued in the next available slot. To send sooner, reassigning a sequence to a different mailbox will not change its position in the queue.

Note that manually enrolled sequence emails count toward the mailbox’s daily limit of 25 emails, whereas manual one‑off emails sent directly from a contact’s record are sent through the standard higher‑volume limit and do not affect the sequence limit.

Note that manual enrollment lets you bypass the sequence re-enrollment rules.

Important Limitations

Avoid reassigning mailboxes after queuing manual emails: If you reassign the mailbox of an enrollment after completing the manual email task but before the email sends, the system will cancel the original queued email and create an entirely new enrollment. This means you'll need to complete and queue the manual email task again.

Emails are processed in a first‑in, first‑out (FIFO) order based on when they are queued, and individual emails cannot be manually reordered within the queue.

Advanced Prioritization Methods

• Pause competing sequences: Pause all active sequences except the one you want to prioritize to move it to the front of the queue.

• Dedicate mailboxes through routing: Open the Sequence action in Play Builder, select Edit routing, and include only the dedicated mailbox(es) while removing those mailbox(es) from other sequences.

• Increase overall capacity: Add more mailboxes or distribute sending across multiple mailboxes to reduce backlogs system‑wide.

Verify actual queue status: Manual emails may appear in the "Outbox > Scheduled" tab even when they haven't been queued to send yet. To ensure your manual email is actually queued, confirm that you've completed the manual email task for the enrollment and that the email shows a future send time that makes sense based on your mailbox availability.

Let's say you set a 30 day time window - this means you will allow a contact to be resequenced 30 days after the last email is sent in a previous sequence. If you queue up a manual enrollment during that time window, we would override the rule and still schedule the email in the next available slot.

When manually enrolling contacts in sequences, you may notice that emails appear scheduled for weekends or other disabled days in the “Outbox > Scheduled” tab, even when your send schedule restricts sending on those days. This is expected behavior – the displayed date is just a placeholder until you complete the manual email task.

Once you complete the manual email task, the system will automatically reschedule the email according to your actual send schedule settings, respecting your disabled days, time windows, and other restrictions. The weekend or disabled day placeholder will be replaced with the correct send time based on your mailbox availability and send schedule configuration.