Subscribers currently in a Journey

Question

What ways could you create a data extension that contains all the subscribers (SubscriberKeys) that are currently “in” a Journey (Journey Builder)?

The Journey I would like to do this for is a complex activity with multiple decision branches resulting in multiple possible journey durations. For example; if the customer didn’t open Email1 after 2 days, then send Email2; else Exit Journey. If the customer didn’t open Email2 after 2 days, then send Email3; else Exit Journey. Wait 2 more days, then End Journey. The minimum journey duration for the above example is 2 days, while the maximum is 6 days.

Note that I don’t want a list of subscribers that “entered” a Journey, but a list of the ones that are “currently in” a Journey and have not yet exited. Answer must account for non-standard Journey exits including Unsubscribes/Contact Deletes, etc.

Answer 1

Update May 2021:

Due to recent changes in the internal table structure of Marketing Cloud Journey Builder, it is no longer possible to request this custom data view. I will provide an update as soon as there is a way of gaining insights into Contact journey presence.

END of update

My best advice is to ask Salesforce for a custom data view. This is something that can easily be done, however it will have a cost, as it is a custom development. However, it will let you achieve exactly what you are after. Here is some sample data from such a custom data view, fetched in Query Studio:

select JourneyVersionNumber
      ,JourneyName
      ,JourneyStatus
      ,ContactKey
      ,ContactID
      ,ContactStatus
      ,EntryDate
      ,ExitDate
from _ContactJourneyPresence

You can also use a WHERE clause, showing only those contacts who currently are a part of a journey:

select JourneyVersionNumber
      ,JourneyName
      ,JourneyStatus
      ,ContactKey
      ,ContactID
      ,ContactStatus
      ,EntryDate
      ,ExitDate
from _ContactJourneyPresence
where ContactStatus
= 'Active'

Here you will see all these records have an empty ExitDate, meaning they still are part of a journey:

Given that such a task is custom development, it is more or less up to you to define which fields you need to have as part of such a data view, as long as the information is available within the platform.

Any "exit" (regular exit, exit criteria, goal criteria) will be reflected in ExitDate. It is afaik also possible to provide the type of exit, kicking the contact out of the journey, as a separate column.

Answer 2

Sounds like a usecase for a journey tracking data extension:

Sendable DE: SubscriberKey, Status, Timestamp

On entering the journey use an update contact event to track a field "status" with value "entered" and set timestamp to "current date". You do not need to fill anything into the SubscriberKey field, this is populated automatically if it has that name.

On all exits, track the value "exit" in the same DE.

Then, build an SQL query that filters down all records in the tracking DE that do NOT have status "exit". Join this with your All Subscribers List, or wherever you track unsubscriptions to account for those. Since the tracking DE MUST be sendable anyway to use Update Contact, contact deletion will affect records in that DE and they won't be listed.

Limitation: Exit tracking doesn't work with Goal-based-exits or Exit criteria. These cannot really be tracked, so my suggestion is, refrain from using those.