0–10 minutes — pause safely and take a snapshot
Stop the workflow trigger or add an immediate short‑circuit: disable the workflow, flip a global "processing" flag, or add a condition that only lets already‑owned records through. The goal is to prevent more leads being misassigned while you investigate.
Quickly export or screenshot the current state: recent assignments (last 24–48 hours), owner counts, SLA timers, and any queued/failed integration messages. Keep these snapshots handy for rollback and to show the team what changed.
If you need a fast template for small teams on the South Coast to manage workflow pauses, see the workflow automation support page for practical patterns.
10–35 minutes — focused diagnostics (where leads go missing)
Run narrow checks that catch the usual causes: duplicates (contacts/companies), owner conflicts (two systems assigning the same lead), lifecycle or source mismatches, sudden score changes and SLA timer backlogs. Use whatever quick reporting your platform offers — HubSpot lists, Salesforce reports, Marketo smart lists or Pardot segmentation — and look for spikes or mass edits.
Also check integrations and recent changes: review API/webhook queues (Zapier/Make or native integrations), recent deployment notes, and any bulk imports or form changes in the last 48 hours. Document one clear hypothesis (for example: duplicate merge workflow retriggering assignment) before acting.
35–60 minutes — immediate mitigations, monitor and resume with a rollback
Apply low‑risk mitigations you can reverse: set a per‑record "Do‑Not‑Automate" tag for VIPs, route uncertain leads into an exception queue for human review, and add a temporary rule so the assignment workflow only runs on leads with clean source+lifecycle values. Use a processing‑state flag to make the workflow idempotent for the next hour.
Before re‑enabling, test with three canary leads and monitor: a saved list or dashboard that shows assignment outcomes, owner distribution and SLA breaches. Keep the snapshots from minute 10 so you can roll back by reapplying the previous state or disabling the mitigations if things worsen.
If you’re in Fareham or elsewhere in Hampshire and want a hand turning this 60‑minute plan into a reusable checklist or to tidy the underlying CRM data, Optira can help with practical CRM optimisation and automation support.