Live Journeys Updates: What Actually Happens When You Edit a Live Journey

Hana Collins

— 2 min read

If you’ve ever hesitated before saving changes to a journey that’s already Live, you’re not alone.

In Customer Insights – Journeys, live journeys are designed to keep running while you make changes — but the key is understanding how updates apply and who they apply to.

This post is about exactly that: what “update a live journey” really means in practice.

The Mental Model: Existing Participants vs. Future Participants

When you edit a journey that’s already live, the most important thing to remember is:

  • Some people are already inside the journey
  • Others will enter later (or at the next evaluation/run, depending on how you start the journey)

So an update doesn’t always mean “everyone immediately follows the new logic.”

Instead, you should think in terms of “who has already progressed” vs “who hasn’t reached that step yet”.

What Happens When You Save Changes to a Live Journey

When you save a change to a journey that is already Live in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys, the system creates a new version of the journey.

The newly saved version becomes the active Live version, and the previous version automatically moves to Completing status.

What “Completing” Actually Means

When a journey version moves to Completing, it is essentially finishing its work.

Two important things happen:

1. No new members will enter that version of the journey

All new participants will enter the new Live version of the journey.

2. Members already in that version will continue

Anyone who already entered the previous version will continue through the remaining steps until they finish the journey.

When the Previous Version Moves to "Completed"

After a new version is saved, the previous version remains in Completing status until the members already in that version finish their remaining steps.

Once all remaining members have completed the journey, that version moves to Completed automatically.

If no members remain in the previous version when the new version is saved, it may move to Completed without delay.

When You May Need to Stop It Manually

Not every Completing version will finish quickly.

If the journey design includes long waits, repeating patterns, or logic that keeps participants in the flow for an extended period, that version may remain in Completing status longer than expected.

In these situations, teams often decide whether to let the version finish naturally or stop it manually. The right decision usually depends on the customer experience you want to control.

Some questions to consider:

  • Could leaving the previous version running result in duplicate sends?
  • Do you want all future messages to follow the new version and new messaging?
  • Will stopping the previous version interrupt participants before they receive an expected communication?
  • If you stop the version, could those participants re-enter the journey and receive the same message again?

Watch for Segments That Use Behavioral Elements

If a segment uses behavioral elements tied to a specific journey, creating a new journey version will also require an update to the segment.

That is because the segment still references the previous Journey ID instead of the newly created version.

Depending on how the segment was built, you may need to:

  • add a new group for the new journey version (Journey ID), or
  • update the existing group to reference the new version (Journey ID)

Since the lookup currently shows only the journey name, it may take a few tries to identify the correct version when multiple versions exist.

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