Distribution Rules in Shape

Get every lead to the right person, fast

Getting a new lead into your CRM is only the first step. The next question is who should receive it, and how quickly they can start working it.

Shape’s Distribution Rules automate lead assignment around how your organization actually works. Route records to users, teams, or departments; apply filters; respect each user’s State Eligibility; set distribution caps; define business hours; and redistribute opportunities that aren’t being worked.

Managers can also track what happens after distribution: who first received a record, who owns it now, how and when it was assigned, and when follow-up began. That gives you control over both sides of lead distribution:

• How should leads be assigned?
• What happened after they were assigned?

What are Distribution Rules?

Distribution Rules decide how incoming records are assigned to users. They can apply when records enter Shape through automated marketing, API integrations, lead providers, website and landing page submissions, imports (when configured), and other automated record-creation workflows.

Distribution Rules are optional. Some organizations want every new lead assigned immediately. Others let records enter unassigned so a manager can assign them or users can claim them. Shape supports both.

Why automate lead distribution?

As lead volume grows, deciding by hand who gets each opportunity becomes hard to manage. Automated distribution helps you:

• Get new leads in front of users faster
• Distribute opportunities consistently and balance workload
• Route specialized opportunities to the right people
• Send leads only to users licensed in the right state
• Separate business-hours and after-hours workflows
• Keep users from receiving more leads than they can work
• Redistribute neglected opportunities
• Track how records were assigned and what happened next

A well-designed strategy cuts manual work for managers and gives users a more predictable flow of new opportunities.

Creating a Distribution Rule

Rule order matters

Shape evaluates Distribution Rules in the order they appear on the settings page. When a record qualifies for more than one rule, Shape works top to bottom and uses the first rule that can distribute it. So put your most specific rules above your broader ones.

Example:

• Rule 1: California Purchase Leads. Filters: State = California, Purpose = Purchase.
• Rule 2: All New Leads. No restrictive filters.

The California rule should come first. Otherwise the broad rule could distribute the record before Shape ever reaches it.

Choosing recipients

Distribution Recipients decide who can receive records through the rule. Depending on your setup, you can distribute to all applicable active users, a specific user, a team, or a department. After you pick recipients, more options may appear to refine who can receive the record.

Using filters to route the right leads

Filters let you build targeted rules based on state, lead source, record type, product or service, campaign, status, and other record information. For example:

• A mortgage company routes California purchase leads to a dedicated team.
• An insurance organization sends one product type to a specialized team.
• A sales organization sends a high-priority campaign’s leads to a dedicated group.

Filters use AND logic. When a rule has several conditions, a record has to meet all of them. With State = California AND Source = Purchased, a California lead from another source doesn’t qualify. Every condition you add narrows the audience.

State filters and State Eligibility do different jobs. A state filter decides which leads a rule handles. State Eligibility decides which users within that rule can receive each lead. Many teams use both. See the next section.

Keep rules as simple as possible. Start with the simplest setup that does the job, then add one rule, cap, schedule, or filter at a time and watch the results. When something doesn’t behave as expected, a simpler setup makes the cause much easier to find.

State Eligibility: send leads only to licensed users

In licensed industries like mortgage and insurance, a lead should only go to someone licensed in the right state. Turn on Follow User Profile State Eligibility in a Distribution Rule, and Shape checks the lead’s state against the State Eligibility field on each user’s profile. Users only receive leads for states listed there.

Which state does Shape check?

Shape checks the lead’s location fields in order and uses the first one available.

For mortgage, Property State comes first because licensing follows where the property is. A borrower living in Nevada and buying in California is routed by California.

Oregon borrowers need two licenses

For mortgage accounts, if the borrower’s Present State is Oregon, the user’s State Eligibility must include Oregon and the Property State. This applies even when the property is outside Oregon. Oregon is an added requirement, not a replacement: Property State stays the primary licensing state.

If no user in the rule meets every required state, Shape won’t distribute the lead to an ineligible user. This applies across automated routing and Shark Tank.

Area codes aren’t used for lead distribution

Distribution Rules never use the phone number’s area code to decide licensing. That includes web forms, API and HTTP posts, imports, and Shark Tank. The one exception is inbound call routing: when Shape has no state information for a caller, it uses the caller’s area code as a fallback to route the call to an eligible user.

When Shape can’t determine the state

If a lead has no usable state information, it isn’t distributed through licensing-based routing until its state can be verified. It stays unassigned so a manager can review it.

Time Zone Protect works separately

State Eligibility decides who receives a lead. Time Zone Protect decides when that user can call or text it, based on the lead’s local calling hours. The two use different location priorities. A borrower in Nevada buying in California is routed to a California-licensed user, but called on Nevada time.

Keep State Eligibility current. Update each user’s State Eligibility field as licenses are added or expire. It’s one of the first things to check when a user doesn’t receive a lead you expected.

Applying rules to imports

Imports don’t necessarily behave like newly generated leads. In each rule, you choose whether it also applies to imported records. Turn it on when a batch of imported records should go straight into an established workflow: enter Shape, get assigned, receive the intended status, and start the right automation. Leave it off if imported records shouldn’t be assigned automatically.

Distribution caps

Caps keep any one user from receiving more new opportunities than you want them handling in a given period. They help when lead volume is high, users have different capacity, newer users should get fewer leads, or you want a more balanced workload.

Same caps for everyone. Use the option to apply the same caps to all users in the rule. Caps can be hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly.

Different caps per user. Use Customize Caps Per User when people have different capacity. For example: User A gets 20 new leads per day, User B gets 10, and User C gets 5, all within the same rule.

When a user hits their cap, Shape skips them for additional distributions where the cap applies. For example, a capped user may be skipped in Round Robin or left out of QuickFire opportunities. If no eligible recipient is left, the record may stay unassigned and go through your organization’s unassigned-record workflow.

Shark Tank claims don’t count toward these caps. Shark Tank has its own Daily Caps, tracked separately.

Hours of distribution

Not every organization wants leads distributed the same way around the clock. Turn on Add Hours of Distribution in a rule, then set start and end times for each day. It’s useful when your team works set business hours, an after-hours team handles evening leads, weekend leads follow a different process, or after-hours records should stay unassigned.

Outside the schedule, that rule doesn’t handle the record. You can create another rule for the off-hours workflow or let the record stay unassigned. For example:

• Business Hours Rule: Monday through Friday during sales hours, to the primary sales team.
• After-Hours Rule: evenings and weekends, to an after-hours team.

Or leave after-hours leads unassigned so they can be reviewed or claimed later.

Redistributing neglected leads

Assigning a lead doesn’t guarantee it gets worked. Redistribution Rules move records when follow-up expectations aren’t met. You can base them on whether the record has been called, opened, contacted, received other activity, or stayed untouched, and set how long (minutes, hours, or days) the original user has before it moves.

Then choose which Distribution Rule handles the record next, and how many times it can be redistributed. For example:

1. A new lead goes to the primary sales team.
2. The user has a set period to work it.
3. If the required activity doesn’t happen, the lead is redistributed.
4. Another eligible user gets a chance to work it.

Distribution methods

The right method depends on whether you value automatic assignment, speed to response, or user-driven claiming. All of them respect State Eligibility when it’s turned on.

QuickFire recipient options come from the QuickFire configuration in your Shape settings. Shark Tank is configured separately from Distribution Rules, but its assignments still appear in distribution reporting. See the Shark Tank guide for setup.

Tracking distribution after assignment

Creating the rule is only half of managing lead flow. Shape’s list views and reporting let you answer:

• Who received this lead first, and who owns it now?
• When and how was it distributed?
• Which Distribution Rule or Shark Tank handled it?
• When did the team first contact it, and when was the first outbound call?
• Has ownership changed? How many call attempts have been made?

The Contact Assignment & Distribution Report

This report gives record-level visibility into assignment and follow-up, with Lead ID, Lead Name, Source, Created Date, First User Assigned, Current User Assigned, Last Distribution Method, Last Distribution Date & Time, First Contact Date & Time, Last Call Attempt, Total Calls, and Last Status.

First User Assigned vs. Current User Assigned. First User Assigned is who received the record first; Current User Assigned is who’s responsible now. They differ when a record has been manually reassigned, redistributed, claimed through another workflow such as Shark Tank, or moved by another assignment process.

Last Distribution Method shows how the record was most recently assigned: a Distribution Rule, Shark Tank, manual assignment, bulk assignment, or another process. When possible, Shape shows the specific rule or Shark Tank name. “Consumer Direct Purchase Leads” is far more useful than a generic category.

Last Distribution Date & Time shows when it was most recently distributed. Pair it with Last Distribution Method and Current User Assigned to answer: when was this lead last distributed, how, and who has it now?

Use Last Distribution Method in list views

Last Distribution Method is also available as a column in supported contact list views. Add it, filter by distribution process, and compare status, assigned user, call activity, and first contact without opening a report.

Measuring speed to lead

Fast distribution matters most when it leads to fast follow-up. These fields help you tell routing speed apart from follow-up speed. A lead can be assigned instantly and still sit untouched.

For teams where speed to call is a key metric, First Outbound Call answers the most direct question: how long did it take us to call after the lead came in?

Troubleshooting: why did this user get this lead?

Work backward through the distribution information:

1. Check Last Distribution Method to see which process most recently handled the record.
2. Review Last Distribution Date & Time to confirm when it happened.
3. Compare First and Current Assigned Users to see if ownership changed.
4. Review the Distribution Rule that handled it: rule order, filters, recipients, caps, distribution hours, State Eligibility, and distribution method.
5. Check the user’s eligibility at that moment. Availability, caps, and State Eligibility can all change who was eligible.
6. Review redistribution. If the current owner isn’t the original one, check whether a Redistribution Rule, Shark Tank claim, or another process moved it.

Troubleshooting: why didn’t this user get the lead?

• Was the user a recipient? Confirm the user, team, or department is in the rule.
• Did the record match the filters? Remember filters use AND logic.
• Had the user hit a cap? Capped users are skipped for additional assignments.
• Was the rule on? An off rule doesn’t distribute.
• Was it inside the rule’s distribution hours?
• Did a rule above it match first? Rules are evaluated top to bottom.
• Was the user eligible for the lead’s state? Check the lead’s Property State (mortgage) or Present State (other industries) against the user’s State Eligibility field. For mortgage borrowers who live in Oregon, the user also needs Oregon in their State Eligibility.
• Was the user available? Availability settings can affect eligibility.

The record pool and unassigned records

Not every record needs to be pushed to a user right away. If a record has no distribution path, or no eligible recipient is available (for example, nobody holds the right state licenses), it can stay unassigned. Managers can review unassigned records, and users may be able to claim them through pool or Shark Tank workflows.

Lead distribution best practices

• ✓Put specific rules before general ones. Rules are evaluated in order.
• ✓Use clear rule names. They pay off again when you review distribution history.
• ✓Start simple. Build the core workflow first, then add caps, schedules, and redistribution as you validate the results.
• ✓Set realistic caps. More leads aren’t always better; base caps on what users can work while keeping response times and follow-up quality.
• ✓Keep State Eligibility current. Update each user’s State Eligibility field as licenses change, and remember Oregon borrowers need Oregon plus the Property State.
• ✓Plan for after-hours leads. Decide intentionally what happens when a lead arrives outside working hours.
• ✓Use redistribution for neglected leads, and give users a fair window that accounts for the lead’s calling hours.
• ✓Monitor after launch. Use list views and the Contact Assignment & Distribution Report to review who receives leads, how, ownership changes, first contact, first outbound calls, and call activity.
• ✓Measure assignment and follow-up separately. Fast assignment doesn’t mean fast follow-up.
• ✓Change one thing at a time so you can see the effect of each change.

Frequently asked questions

Build a lead distribution strategy you can measure

A good strategy does more than put names on records. It gets the right opportunities to the right, licensed people, controls workload, accounts for availability, gives neglected leads another chance, and shows managers what happened next.

Start with a straightforward structure that reflects how your team works. Then use Shape’s distribution reporting to check who received leads, how they were assigned, whether ownership changed, how quickly users made first contact, and where opportunities get stuck.

Need help? Email help@setshape.com, call Support at (888) 718-6344, or visit setshape.com/support.

Related guides: Time Zone Protect · Shark Tank · Prioritized Views & Prioritization Rules · Duplicate Merge Insights · Filter Operators Explained