Overview
Every contact in Brokerkit has a bucket in addition to a status. Buckets determine where a contact appears (or is hidden) in your main views, while statuses track where the contact sits in your pipeline. The three bucket values are Normal, Backlog, and Archived.
Bucket vs. Status — What's the Difference?
- Status is the pipeline stage (Lead, Contact Attempt, Appt Set, Onboarding, Active, etc.). Statuses are visible in the contact profile and can be customized. See Custom Contact Statuses.
- Bucket is a system field that controls whether a contact appears in your Recruiting, Retention, or Archived views. Buckets are not part of your pipeline — they control visibility.
"Backlog" is not a custom status. It is one of three bucket values built into Brokerkit.
The Three Bucket Values
1. Normal
- The standard bucket. Contacts appear in your main Recruiting or Retention views and in the Today view's New Leads widget.
- Contacts added manually via Add Lead land in Normal.
- Contacts promoted to status Onboarding in Retention are automatically moved to Normal.
2. Backlog
- A staged bucket for contacts that were bulk-imported but have not been reviewed yet.
- Contacts in Backlog are hidden from your Today view's New Leads widget, your main Recruiting list, and your main Retention list.
- Any open tasks on a contact are automatically canceled when the contact is moved to Backlog.
When contacts land in Backlog automatically:
- File (CSV) imports — Leads, Team Members, BrokerMetrics, and MarketView Broker imports
- Relitix imports — new contacts brought in by monthly queries
- Courted imports — new contacts brought in by monthly queries
- Referral imports that don't specify a bucket
Why imports use Backlog: Without this, every monthly MLS import would dump thousands of brand-new "Leads" into your Today view and drown out the small handful of prospects you actually want to work that day. Backlog keeps imported contacts available in your account without flooding your daily workflow.
3. Archived
- Contacts you've decided are not a fit and do not want to contact.
- Archiving is always preferred over deleting. Archived contacts are preserved with all notes, labels, and history, and they will match on future MLS imports so they won't be re-added to Recruiting or Retention.
- All active campaigns automatically pause when a contact is archived.
- See Managing Departing Agents for the Retention workflow details.
Archive vs. Delete
Use Archive for people who are not a fit or should not be contacted. Archiving keeps their notes, labels, and history, pauses active campaigns on that contact, and lets future MLS/import updates match the archived record instead of adding the person back to Recruiting or Retention.
Use Delete only when the contact was added by mistake or should be removed from the UI. If you accidentally delete contacts, contact support at support@brokerkit.com or say "talk to human" in chat. Include the label, approximate number of contacts, and whether they were in Recruiting or Retention so support can review restoration.
For Retention contacts, archiving or deleting the contact also removes/releases the associated Brokerkit user role, which removes referral-system access. If support restores deleted Retention contacts, tell them whether that user access should be restored too.
Why You See "Moved from Backlog to Normal" in the Activity Log
If a contact was originally brought in by a file import, MLS integration (Relitix or Courted), or referral, it started life in the Backlog bucket. When someone opens that contact and takes an action that promotes it — marking the agent as Signed, using Move To → Normal, or promoting them to the Onboarding status in Retention — Brokerkit records the bucket change in the activity log.
The note "Moved from Backlog to Normal by [User]" simply means:
"This contact started in the staged Backlog bucket (from an import) and has now been moved into your regular Normal pipeline."
It does not indicate a custom status was used, and it does not indicate anything went wrong. It is the expected activity entry any time an imported contact begins being worked.
Common triggers for a Backlog → Normal transition:
- An MLS or file import brought in the contact (start: Backlog), and someone began working them (moved to Normal manually).
- A Retention contact was promoted to status Onboarding — the bucket is automatically set to Normal at that moment.
- Someone used Move To → Normal on the contact's profile.
Where Do Backlog Contacts Live?
Backlog contacts are hidden from the main navigation on purpose — Backlog used to be its own top-level nav item but generated more confusion than value, so it was removed from the menu. The contacts are still in your account and can be reached in several ways:
- Direct URL:
/recruiter/backlogor/retention/backlogwill load the Backlog view. - Search: searching by name, email, or phone will include Backlog contacts in results.
- Contact detail page: opening a contact always shows the full profile, regardless of bucket.
Moving Contacts Between Buckets
From a contact's profile, click Move To in the upper right:
- Recruiting contacts — the dropdown offers Normal and Archived. Backlog is intentionally not offered as a manual option; it is reserved for system imports to avoid confusion.
- Retention contacts — the dropdown offers Normal, Archived, and Recruiting (to send the agent back to the recruiting pipeline).
- Archived contacts — use Move To → Normal to unarchive, or click the Unarchive button in the red banner at the top of the profile. The contact returns to whichever pipeline (Recruiting or Retention) they were in before being archived.