What the Queues widget shows you
The Queues widget is a Home dashboard widget that gives you a rolling summary of your site's email and text sending activity, including how many messages have failed, without opening the Contact, Email menu every time. It is a monitoring view: it tells you whether anything needs attention and links straight through to the detail screen where you act on a failure.
This article covers the widget itself: what its numbers mean, how to add it, and how to change the number of days it covers. For the screen you land on when you follow a failure through from the widget, including how to clear an error or deactivate an address, see Failed Emails. For what the exact error wording means, see Email Error Messages. This article does not repeat either of those.
Before you start
Role Permissions
- Contact people by email
- Contact people by text (only needed if you also want the Text Recipients row)
For a full list of role permissions and what they mean, see People role permissions.
Add the Queues widget to your Home dashboard
- Open your Dashboard (click Dashboard on the main menu bar on the left).
- Click Add Widgets, near the top of the page.
- In the Widgets list, click Queues.
The widget appears on your dashboard as Queues for the past 7 days.
To remove the widget later, click the small x in its top corner. infoodle asks you to confirm before removing it.
Reading the table
Each row in the widget covers one type of message: Emails (counted per email you sent, however many people it went to), Email Recipients (counted per person the email went to), and Text Recipients (counted per person a text went to). The Text Recipients row only appears if your role has the Contact people by text permission.
The five columns don't all mean the same kind of count. Three are scoped to what you personally sent; two are scoped to your whole site:
| Column | Scope | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Yours | You | Your own emails or texts still waiting to be sent, within the days shown. |
| Failed | You | Your own emails or texts that failed to send, within the days shown. |
| Sent | You | Your own emails or texts that sent successfully, within the days shown. |
| Total in queue | Your whole site | Everyone's emails or texts still waiting to be sent, within the days shown. |
| Scheduled | Your whole site | Everyone's emails or texts due to go out today. |
Because Failed only counts your own sends, a colleague's failed email will not show up in your Failed column. If you want the full picture across your site, use Total in queue as a general health check, or open the Sending Errors list directly, which is not limited to one person. See Failed Emails.
Following a failure through from the widget
When your Failed count for Emails is greater than zero, a Review errors link appears next to the Emails row. Click it to open the Sending Errors list in Contact, Email, where you can see the reason for each failure and clear or deactivate the address.
The widget itself does not show why a send failed, and it does not offer any action on a failure beyond that link. Reviewing and acting on individual failures is covered in Failed Emails.
Choosing how many days the widget covers
The widget defaults to the past 7 days. To change this, click the pencil icon in the widget's top corner, enter a different number in Days to view, and click Save.
A longer window means the Yours, Failed, and Sent columns cover more history. Total in queue and Scheduled are not affected by this setting in the same way: Total in queue still reflects what is currently waiting to be sent within the window, and Scheduled always reflects today.
The Queues widget and the Queues menu item are not the same thing
Your main menu on the left also has a link called Queues, which opens Work Queues, the list of workflow tasks waiting for you to process. It shares a name with this widget but covers a completely different area of infoodle: workflow tasks, not email or text sending. If you are looking for send failures and land on Work Queues instead, you have the wrong "Queues": go back to your Dashboard and use the Queues widget described in this article.
Common questions
Does the Queues widget automatically resend a failed email?
No. infoodle does not automatically retry a failed send. The widget's Failed count is a record of what has already happened; acting on it, whether that is clearing the error or deactivating the address, is something you do from the Sending Errors list. See Failed Emails.
My Failed column shows 0, but I know an email failed today. Why?
The Yours, Failed, and Sent columns only count messages you personally sent. If a colleague sent the email that failed, it will not appear in your Failed column. Check Total in queue for a site-wide count, or open the Sending Errors list, which shows every failure your role can see, not just your own.
Does this widget cover text messages too?
Yes, if your role has the Contact people by text permission. The Text Recipients row uses the same column meanings as the email rows: Yours, Failed, and Sent are your own texts; Total in queue and Scheduled are site-wide.
Can I see this widget's numbers for a period other than a rolling window?
The widget always shows a rolling window ending today, sized by the Days to view setting. For a specific date range or a fuller history of an address's failures, use the Sending Errors list and the Check address dialog described in Failed Emails.
Next steps
Add the Queues widget to your dashboard so a failed send is visible without opening Contact, Email. When Failed is greater than zero, follow the Review errors link through to the Sending Errors list to see what happened and act on it.
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