A lead is routed correctly only if five things hold, one after the other. Routing breaks quietly: nothing errors, leads keep arriving, and the damage shows up months later as pipeline that never formed. This page follows a lead from the form to the forecast and links the check for each step.
1. Routed: a rule picks the owner
An assignment rule, a flow, or a routing tool decides who gets the lead. The usual faults are an entry that can never match, an entry hidden behind a broader one, and a second system that sets the owner afterwards. Start with why an assignment rule is not working and a flow overriding it. If you use a router, see LeanData routing errors and Traction Complete retraction. With territories, read territory rules not working.
2. Owned: the owner can work it
The lead lands with a person or a queue. Leads go to queues nobody works, to people who have left, or to the integration user. When Omni-Channel serves the queue, it has its own ways to stall. And a lead whose owner keeps changing usually has two systems fighting over it.
3. Worked: someone acts in time
Ownership is not action. Measure first response time per rep against a target, and count the leads still at the default status.
4. Converted: it becomes a deal
Check that a converted lead creates an opportunity, and that deals leave the SDR team by the handoff stage. Then look at who owns the opportunity against the account.
5. The data underneath
Routing rules read lead fields, so bad data breaks routing. Look at leads with no source and duplicate leads.
Check it yourself
SELECT COUNT() FROM Lead WHERE IsConverted = false AND Owner.Type = 'Queue'
SELECT COUNT() FROM Lead WHERE IsConverted = false AND Owner.IsActive = false
SELECT COUNT() FROM Lead WHERE IsConverted = false AND Status = 'New' AND CreatedDate < LAST_N_DAYS:2Three counts, ten minutes. If any is higher than you expected, follow the link for that step. To make this routine rather than a one-off, read how often to audit lead routing.
Have it checked every night instead.
Routing Forensics connects as a read-only user and checks this, and the rest of your routing, against your real leads. Register interest and you will be first to get a free health report: what is leaking, where, and what it is worth.
The free scan cannot see this one: it reads assignment rules, flows and queues only. Connected, it is checked every night.