I'm having some problems with time based workflow. I have set up an email drip campaign using time based workflow. To do this, I created a series of outbound emails based on a custom date field, "activation date". I also created completed tasks associated with each of these emails so that we would have a record that the emails were sent.

The emails are sent out over the course of a 35 day period. When I first activated the campaign, I went through and triggered the workflow on a list of contacts that are already somewhere along that 35 day period. I then went to monitor my time based workflow and noticed that the actions that should have taken place in the past showed up in the queue. (e.g. if someone was supposed to receive an email 10, 20, 27, and 35 days after 9/1/09, they showed up in the queue for all of these dates, regardless of whether the date had passed or not.) I deleted all of the past dates from the queue, cancelling the actions, because I did not want these people to receive all of these emails in one day.

Unfortunately, this morning I noticed that the associated tasks with the workflow showed up in the contacts' activity history. I ran a report, and sure enough, the tasks were logged for all of the past dates even though I had cancelled the workflow. I ran a report for html email sent, but unfortunately came up with no results--maybe it does not record email sent through workflow?

I have a few questions, and answers to any of them would be greatly appreciated.

1. Is there any way that I can see if the emails actually went out? It's probably just wishful thinking, but I'm hoping just the tasks were logged and the emails didn't go out.

2. Is it possible to create workflow rules that will only trigger future actions? i.e. Can I create workflow that will put someone on the middle of a series or do they always have to start from the beginning?

3. Any ideas of why the workflow was still executed even though I cancelled it?