Survey status (e_status)

The Survey status (e_status) field tracks survey records through processing states, including delivery, completion, exclusion, and reset paths used for reporting, imports, and automation.

Survey status (e_status) tracks the status of response records as they move through Medallia Experience Cloud processing states, such as whether or not the record is waiting for a respondent to complete the survey, or if a reminder email has been sent. R-fields, K-fields often check this field in their JavaScript when performing calculations, and exports often use it to identify records to export.

Medallia Experience Cloud automatically sets the field value as the record is processed. However, imported records can come in with a value telling Experience Cloud how to process the record, such as for external surveys or invitation emails, or as a way of bypassing the invitation manager. Some import actions change the states of existing records as a way of reprocessing the records, or resetting them to a previous state. For more information, see Transition a record to another state and Updating existing records.

Flow chart of survey record states and their transition paths. Transition paths are described below in the definitions of the individual states.

Each state has a integer code and a descriptive name that identifies the state. Following is a detailed description of the states. Note that reporting uses different, descriptive messages when reporting these states. See Invitation status for information about the messages.

0 COMPLETION_PENDING
The record is "complete" and awaiting processing before being made available for reporting. Processing includes alert testing, Text Analytics, Lucene indexing, and customer tracking.

Transitioning from COMPLETION_PENDING to COMPLETED also automatically sets the timestamp for e_ta_completed_date to the current time, even if the record was not processed for Text Analytics.

Transitions to:

  • 1 COMPLETED (ready for reporting)
  • 24 AUTO_EXCLUDED (possible cheating detected)
1 COMPLETED
Survey is complete and ready for reporting.

Transitions to:

  • 4 EXCLUDED (hidden, but available to some reports)
  • 7 JUNKED (unavailable)
  • 23 COMPLETED_NOT_LOADED_BY_SLUG (available but not included in aggregate reporting)
2 READY_FOR_SE
A record was created from an import and it is waiting to be transferred to the Survey engine for survey and invitation creation.
Important: Survey versions must be synchronized after any changes are made to a survey or its supporting data, for both feedless and feeded surveys. If survey versions are not synchronized and invites are triggered, surveys remain in the READY_FOR_SE status and are not distributed. Medallia recommends enabling the Automatically sync the latest changes configuration option.

Transitions to:

  • 6 READY_FOR_BROADCASTER
3 SURVEY_ENGINE_ONLY
Ready to create a survey with no invitation. Anonymous surveys create a record in this state.

Incomplete Anonymous surveys — ones where the survey taker did not click Finish — remain in this state.

Transitions to:

  • 0 COMPLETION_PENDING
4 EXCLUDED
Survey is completed, but excluded (hidden) from most dashboards and from all aggregate scores.

These modules include the records when the user has the Survey rights - View excluded surveys capability:

  • Responses tab
  • Invitations tab

These modules never show excluded records:

  • Satisfaction tab
  • Profiler tab
  • Ranker tab

Custom modules can access excluded records using the Invitations option of the Data property.

Alerts may send notifications and perform other activities on a record in this state.

No transitions from this state.

5 NO_INVITE
Record was created from import, but not transferred to the Sampling or the Survey engine. Typically this is used for external invitations to internal surveys.

No transitions from this state.

6 READY_FOR_BROADCASTER
Survey and invitation have been created by the Survey Engine, now the Invitation email needs to be sent by the Broadcaster.

Transitions to:

  • 8 DELIVERED_TO_BROADCASTER
7 JUNKED
The survey has been generated — possibly completed — but it is invisible to the entire Experience Cloud, and it is terminal and cannot transition to any other state. This usually happens for surveys generated for testing. To junk a survey, use the Junk this survey button on the Recent surveys reports screen or set the status with the importer.
Warning: Once junked, a record is not visible to any part of Experience Cloud.

No transitions from this state.

8 DELIVERED_TO_BROADCASTER
The Invitation email was passed to Broadcaster, which is waiting to send it

Transitions to:

  • 9 RETRY_DELIVERY_LATER (initial delivery failed)
  • 10 DELIVERY_FAILED (unable to deliver)
  • 11 DELIVERY_BOUNCED (email bounced)
  • 12 DELIVERED (wait for the survey to be completed)
  • 14 DELIVERED_NO_REMINDER (delivered with no reminder)
9 RETRY_DELIVERY_LATER
Broadcaster failed initial delivery, but it retries up to three more attempts, over about an hour's time. Retry happens when the delivery attempt failed, but not for a fatal reason. For example, the target server might be too busy and temporarily not accepting messages.

Transitions to:

  • 8 DELIVERED_TO_BROADCASTER (resend the invitation)
10 DELIVERY_FAILED
Broadcaster was unable to deliver the message either because of a fatal reason or because it has given up on retry attempts. Fatal errors are permanently unresolvable, such as a nonexistent host.

No transitions from this state.

11 DELIVERY_BOUNCED
The email bounced. This is different from DELIVERY_FAILED in that the email was initially delivered successfully, but later a bounce response was received. The cause for the bounce is described in the Bounce category (e_bounce_category) field, and can include unknown email, the recipient's email inbox was full, and an out-of-office message, among others. For a discussion and list of the bounce responses, see Bounced email status.

No transitions from this state.

12 DELIVERED
Invitation email is delivered (accepted by the SMTP server). When the configuration has multiple Reminder emails, the record returns to this state after sending them. After all reminders have been sent, it transition to DELIVERED_AND_REMINDED.

Transitions to:

  • 0 COMPLETION_PENDING (wait for the survey to be completed)
  • 18 INVITATION_RESENT (invitation resent with no reminders)
  • 22 DELIVERED_REMINDER_TO_BROADCASTER (reminder pending)
13 DELIVERED_AND_REMINDED
Both the Invitation and all reminder emails have been delivered; no further emails will or can be sent.
Transitions to:
  • 0 COMPLETION_PENDING (wait for the survey to be completed)

This state cannot transition to DELIVERED.

14 DELIVERED_NO_REMINDER
Invitation email was delivered, but no reminder email was or will be sent out. This happens when:
  • There is no reminder email configured.
  • The invitee opts out from more emails.
  • The invitee replies to the email.

Transitions to:

  • 0 COMPLETION_PENDING (wait for the survey to be completed)

This state cannot transition to DELIVERED.

15 RESET
The survey was completed, but later reset to allow the survey taker to take it again. See 19 RESET_PENDING for more information.

Transitions to:

  • 0 COMPLETION_PENDING (after the invitee completes the survey)
16 EXPIRED
Invitee tried to take survey by clicking on the survey page, but the survey had expired. When this happens, the invitee sees the expiration message.

Surveys that are EXPIRED cannot be reset.

No transitions from this state.

17 READY_FOR_SE_ONLY
A record was created from an import, and it is waiting to be transferred to the Survey engine to create a survey without passing through sampling and without creating an invitation.

Transitions to:

  • 3 SURVEY_ENGINE_ONLY (create a survey with no invitation)
18 INVITATION_RESENT
The Invitation email was resent, and there were no reminder emails.

Transitions to:

  • 0 COMPLETION_PENDING (wait for the survey to be completed)
19 RESET_PENDING
The survey was completed, but later reset. In this state the record has not yet been re-transferred to the Survey engine, which transitions it to the RESET status to allow the survey to be retaken.

Transitions to:

  • 15 RESET (wait for the survey to be completed)
20 —
Obsolete; No longer used.
21 —
Obsolete; No longer used.
22 DELIVERED_REMINDER_TO_BROADCASTER
Reminder email was passed to the broadcaster, which transitions the record to DELIVERED_AND_REMINDED after the the email is delivered.

Transitions to:

  • 13 DELIVERED_AND_REMINDED (wait for the survey to be completed)
23 COMPLETED_NOT_LOADED_BY_SLUG
The record was COMPLETED, but will not be loaded by the In-Memory Analytics Engine (Slug).

Surveys outside of the retention policy (typically 2 full years plus current year) may be transitioned to this status to reduce the size of the data set.

No transitions from this state.

24 AUTO_EXCLUDED
The survey has been (automatically) identified as a probable attempt at cheating and is treated as EXCLUDED. However, unlike EXCLUDED, the survey has not run through the processing that happens in the transition between COMPLETION_PENDING and COMPLETED (Alert testing, Lucene indexing, and customer tracking).

To transition the survey to COMPLETED and do all the associated processing, move the survey to EXIT_AUTO_EXCLUDED.

Custom modules can access excluded records using the Invitations option of the Data property.

Transitions to:

  • 25 EXIT_AUTO_EXCLUDED (process the completed survey)
25 EXIT_AUTO_EXCLUDED
The survey is treated as a normal, completed survey after having previously been automatically excluded (because it was identified as a probable attempt at cheating). Like COMPLETION_PENDING, the survey goes through all the one-time processing of a newly completed survey, but it is not subject to the automatic exclusion processing.

Transitions to:

  • 1 COMPLETED (ready for reporting)
26 NOT_SAMPLED
The survey did not pass the Sampling criteria. The specific cause of the survey failing the sampling criteria is captured in the Sampling exclusion reason (a_sampling_result_exclusion_cause) field.

This field is null when:

  • Unit is inactive
  • There is no committed Survey version.

A NOT_SAMPLED record may be re-imported and re-sampled (assuming some conditions have changed to allow subsequent passage by Sampling).

No transitions from this state.

27 NO_SURVEY_ENGINE
Survey record information is available for reporting but was not sent to the Survey engine — no Invitation email was sent. Later, more information about the record may be imported, and the record may pass through Sampling and invitations.

This state is used when a transaction is incomplete and the survey is not sent until it is complete. For example, when a guest stays at a hotel a record might be created and updated throughout the guest's stay. But only when the guest checks out, does the import happen that feeds the Survey engine and generates the invitation.

Similarly, Medallia Conversations uses this when it creates a customer-initiated conversation.

No transitions from this state.

28 AWAITING_SAMPLING
The sampling service is busy, and the record is waiting to be processed. Normally, records go straight into processing without going into this state.

Transitions to:

  • 2 READY_FOR_SE (send invitation)
  • 3 SURVEY_ENGINE_ONLY (survey information collected, no invitation or survey)
  • 27 NO_SURVEY_ENGINE (create a survey, but no invitation)

Transition a record to another state

Some import actions change the states of existing records as a way of reprocessing the records, or resetting them to a previous state. This is done by setting the Status field in the import specification.

However, some states are terminal and cannot be changed, and some have restrictions that do not allow changes to specific states.

Terminal state

JUNKED is terminal and cannot be transitioned from.

Restricted transitions

These transitions are not allowed:

StateCannot transition to
DELIVERED_AND_REMINDEDDELIVERED
DELIVERED_NO_REMINDERDELIVERED
DELIVERED_REMINDER_TO_BROADCASTER DELIVERED
DELIVERY_BOUNCED
  • DELIVERED
  • DELIVERED_AND_REMINDED
  • DELIVERED_NO_REMINDER
EXIT_AUTO_EXCLUDEDAUTO_EXCLUDED

Allowed states

If a survey is not in a terminal state, and the transition is not restricted, you can transition the record to one of these allowed states:

  • COMPLETION_PENDING
  • COMPLETED
  • READY_FOR_SE
  • READY_FOR_SE_ONLY
  • READY_FOR_BROADCASTER
  • RESET_PENDING
  • RESET
  • SURVEY_ENGINE_ONLY
  • EXCLUDED
  • AUTO_EXCLUDED
  • NO_INVITE
  • NOT_SAMPLED
  • NO_SURVEY_ENGINE
  • AWAITING_SAMPLING
  • JUNKED
  • EXPIRED