What does "Filter contacts out of my network (keep 1st level only)" action do?

1. Video tutorial
2. Text explanation

Filter contacts out of my network (keep 1st level only) action allows to find out who accepted your invite and became a 1st-degree connection.

It is used in Invite & Follow Up template. It is automatically added along with Message to 1st connections | group members, Invite to follow organization, Endorse my contacts, or Group inviter actions if they are added after Invite 2nd & 3rd contacts action.

Video tutorial

Text explanation

Let's imagine you choose Invite & Follow Up template.

Here is how filtering action works: once the profile is invited, it is moved to the next action which in our case is Filter contacts out of my network (keep 1st level only) action. As per default Timeout settings, once in 60 minutes it will automatically take all the profiles from the Queue, go to My Network page, and compare the profiles from the Queue to your 1st-degree connections. If there is a match, then it means the invited profile has accepted your invitation and now can be moved down the Workflow into the next action's Queue.

There are advanced settings that change action behavior:

In order to better understand how it works, let's take a look at the following example: we invited five profiles, one the next day after another: profile A was invited on January 11, 2020 profile B was invited on January 12, 2020, etc. Every profile accepted the invitation ten days later: profile A became 1st connection on January 21, 2020, profile B became 1st connection on January 22, 2020, etc.

 

Filter contacts out of my network (keep 1st level only) Action was already executed once on January 22, 2020, and found two profiles, A, and B.

 

Here is how Action behavior is changed based on different settings:

• Check for newly added contacts until: Previously added found - Linked Helper scrolls down till it finds the latest processed profile, which is profile B in our case, and only then it starts to compare profiles in the Queue against the profiles in My network page.
• Check for newly added contacts until: First invite date - Linked Helper scrolls down till it finds any profile that accepted your invite at the date when the oldest profile in the Queue was invited - profile A in our case was invited on January 11, 2020, and only then it starts to compare profiles in the Queue against the profiles in My network page.

Filter contacts out of my network (keep 1st level only) action, unlike Invite 2nd and 3rd level contacts or Message to 1st connections | group members actions, does not visit each profile separately, it checks all the profiles from the Queue at once, yet triggering this Action very often may attract LinkedIn attention, that's why it's not possible to set the timeout between checks to be less than 10 minutes. We recommend leaving the default setting in Timeout between bunches interval to avoid extra activity: What kind of limits should I use?

Please, note that:

• Filter contacts out of my network (keep 1st level only) action checks only those who are in the Queue of the Action, i.e. got there from the Successful list of the upper Action or were added there manually.
• only those who accepted your invitation will be moved to the Successful list by Filter contacts out of my network (keep 1st level only) action;
• those who did not accept your invitation are moved back to the Queue list (not Failed) of the action till the next run;
• Filter contacts out of my network (keep 1st level only) action works in cycles: it only checks who accepted your invitation every X minutes (60 by default) and moves them further. If no one was found, then most probably no invite was accepted.

If you believe that Filter contacts out of my network (keep 1st level only) action does not filter those who accepted your invitation, please:

1. Find a couple of profiles who you believe were not filtered by the action and make sure they are your 1st-degree connections.
2. Make sure those profiles present in the Queue of the Filter contacts out of my network (keep 1st level only) action.
3. Start the campaign and make sure Filter contacts out of my network (keep 1st level only) action checks for newly added contacts at least once.
4. Check whether those profiles you find in step 1 were processed by the action.

If those profiles are your 1st-degree connections and still in the Queue, please:

• choose the First invite date option for Check for newly added contacts until setting;
• go to the Successful list of Filter contacts out of my network (keep 1st level only) action, select all profiles and move them back to the Queue;
• try to run Filter contacts out of my network (keep 1st level only) action again.