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I am experiencing weird behavior on engagement plan. We are running Sitecore 8.2 initial release. If I open the plan in "supervisor" mode I can see the overview on how much contacts are in each plan state. It says there are 120 contacts in my state.
But if I click on that state to see contacts I see only 64 contacts which is correct number.
Also total number of contacts in the plan is about 340 but it tells 532.
So I have a question.. How come that happens and is there a way to fix it?
I am not 100% sure of this, but I believe what you are experiencing is because of the way xDB handles identified and unidentified contacts.
From Identifying Contacts, we learn:
Every time a contact uses a device to interact with your website xDB creates a new contact record. New contacts enter the system as unidentified contacts because the only information collected at this point relates to the browser or device used. This is not enough to identify an individual across multiple devices.
Contacts are connected to the devices they have been using but remain unidentified in the system until they provide a valid identifier. Clearing cookies in the browser breaks the connection between the contact and the device.
And then
Depending on your requirements, there are different identification strategies that you can implement to identify contacts across their devices. For example:
- Introduce a login form.
- Connect to contacts using their given email address or phone number and SMS authentication. These all require you to integrate with the Sitecore platform calling the Identify() API call when applicable.
- Email Experience Manager (EXM) and the Web Forms for Marketers (WFFM) modules integrate with Sitecore to identify contacts when they open email links or complete a web form.
All contact information, as well as an identified contact's history, can be accessed across multiple devices. When a contact identifies themselves using a particular device or browser, Sitecore stores the connection details and, by default, retains this association for the subsequent sessions that follow.
So to point this to what you are experiencing, I believe you may have 120 contacts in total, 64 of which are identified - and only the identified ones make sense to pull up in a report.
