Manual tasks and call steps in a sequence

Draft — written from product facts + domain knowledge; UI labels to be verified before publishing.

Not every touch can be automated. A phone call, a hand-written LinkedIn comment or a personalised video are worth more than another templated email, but only if someone actually does them. Manual task steps put those actions into the sequence: OutreachFox creates a task for you at the right moment, waits until you mark it done, then continues to the next step. This article shows how to add task and call steps and how to work through the task queue.

Prerequisites

• A campaign (email, LinkedIn or multi-channel) with at least one automated step.
• Phone numbers in your contact list if you plan call steps (map the column at upload).

Steps

Add a manual task or call step

1. Open the campaign and click Add Sequence at the point where the manual touch belongs.
2. Choose Manual Task as the step type, then pick the task kind: Call, LinkedIn (manual) or Custom task.
3. Set the wait time (days and hours) after the previous step, as for any step.
4. Write instructions for the person doing the task. Variables work here, so "Call {{first_name}} at {{phone}} about {{pain_point}}" fills in per contact. For calls, add a short talk track.
5. Optional: set a due window (for example 2 days). Overdue tasks are highlighted in the task list.
6. Click Save.

Work through the task queue

1. Go to Campaigns and open the Tasks tab (also reachable from the campaign's own Tasks tab).
2. Filter by campaign, task type or due date. Each task shows the contact, their recent activity (emails opened, connection accepted) and your instructions.
3. Do the task. For calls, click the phone number to dial from your softphone or copy it.
4. Log the outcome: Done, No answer, Skip. Add a note; it is stored on the contact.
5. The contact moves to the next step after the outcome is logged. Skipped tasks also advance; No answer can be set to retry after a delay.

Tips

• Put manual steps after a signal, not before: after an accepted connection, after an email open in step 2, or after a click. Calling cold contacts from the top of the list burns time.
• Keep one manual step per sequence. Two or more and the queue backs up; contacts then wait days for the next automated step.
• Size the daily new contacts limit to the number of tasks you can actually clear each day. If you can make 20 calls, do not add 100 contacts a day.
• Use "No answer" with a 2-day retry, then a plain email step, so the sequence never dead-ends on an unanswered call.
• Assign task ownership when several people share the account, so two reps do not call the same prospect.

Troubleshooting

• Contacts are stuck at the manual step — nobody has marked the task done. Check the Tasks tab for overdue items.
• Task shows no phone number — the phone column was not mapped at upload. Re-upload with merge and map it.
• Task created for a contact who already replied — the reply arrived after the task was generated. Mark it Skip; the reply already ended the sequence for the following steps.
• Manual Task is not offered as a step type — the campaign type is LinkedIn Outreach with a LinkedIn-only sequence; manual steps are available in email and multi-channel campaigns.

Related articles

• Multichannel best practices: sequencing email and LinkedIn touches
• Add follow-up steps and delays to an email sequence
• Add LinkedIn actions and conditions to a multi-channel sequence
• Check lead statuses in a campaign
• Custom variables and updating them mid-campaign