A follow-up that is too late

A phone row more than twenty-four hours past due is closed as missed: and never rung — PHONE_FOLLOWUP_MAX_LATE_HOURS is that cut-off. The reasoning is about the person on the other end: a call-back a day and a half after it was promised is not a late kept promise, it is a surprise from a business that had visibly forgotten them.

Status: Available What this means
Audience: both
Channels: phone
In the app: #/follow-ups, #/calls
Last verified: 2026-09-10
Product version: 6.3.2

The cut-off#

The limit: Twenty-four hours past the due time, on the phone channel.
What happens at it: The row is closed as missed: — a recorded outcome, not a deletion.
What does not happen: No call is placed. Not a shorter one, not an apologetic one; the drain does not ring the row at all.
Which rows: Phone call-backs. A task row is not closed for being late, because the work still needs doing.

The clock runs from the due time, not from when the row was created or when anybody last looked at it. A row created yesterday for yesterday afternoon is already most of the way through its window before anyone opens the queue this morning.

Why a very late call is worse than none#

Consider it from the customer's side. They were promised a call yesterday afternoon. By this evening they have concluded one of two things: that they were forgotten, or that the matter was not urgent after all. Either way they have moved on — rung somebody else, made the decision, or stopped expecting anything.

A call that arrives then does not repair the broken promise; it advertises it. It arrives without the context the customer has since lost, at a moment they are not expecting it, from a business that is demonstrating it works through its backlog a day and a half late. Closing the row and letting a person decide what to do is the more respectful failure.

What the closed row leaves you#

The reason. Still readable, still saying what was promised — so you can decide whether it is worth keeping late, by hand, with an apology.
The missed: outcome. Distinguishable from a cancellation and from a refusal. Nobody chose to abandon this; the clock ran out.
The person's record. The relationship still shows what was owed and that it was not kept, which is the honest history.
No new row. Nothing is automatically rescheduled. Reviving a missed commitment is a person's decision, because only a person can judge whether it is still welcome.

Keeping rows from getting there#

Work the overdue view first thing, not last.
Result Rows that are hours late can still be rung; rows that are a day late cannot.
Snooze deliberately when a day is going to be lost, rather than letting rows drift.
Result A snoozed row has an honest new time and a fresh window. A drifting one is quietly heading for missed:.
Check for held approvals before assuming the drain is working.
Result A row sitting in awaiting approval is still ageing against the same twenty-four hours, and an unworked Needs You queue is a common way to lose one.
If a commitment is genuinely not going to be kept, cancel it.
Result The queue stops lying to you about what is outstanding, and the record says a person decided rather than that a clock did.

Questions#

Can the twenty-four hours be changed?

It is a configured limit rather than something set per follow-up or per customer, so it is not a field on the row. Treat it as a property of the phone channel when you are deciding what to promise somebody.

Does the same rule apply to email follow-ups?

The cut-off documented here is the phone one, and it exists because of what an unexpected call does to a person. A late message is a different kind of intrusion, and lateness there is a judgement rather than an automatic close.

A row was missed. Should I ring anyway?

Often yes, but as a decision you make with the reason in front of you and an opening line that acknowledges the delay. What the rule prevents is that call happening automatically, with no acknowledgement that it is late.