> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.pipelime.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Your first leads: timelines and what to expect

> What happens between creating an agent and the first lead landing, and what each waiting state on the dashboard means.

export const UiPath = ({children}) => {
  const parts = String(children).split(/\s*(?:→|>)\s*/).filter(Boolean);
  return <span className="pl-path">
      {parts.map((part, index) => <span key={`${index}-${part}`}>
          {index > 0 && <span className="pl-path__sep">→</span>}
          {part}
        </span>)}
    </span>;
};

export const Screenshot = ({id, alt, caption, frame = 'browser', url, marks = [], lang = 'en', workspace = 'northwind-outbound'}) => {
  const src = `/images/screenshots/${lang}/${id}.png`;
  const chrome = url ? `app.pipelime.ai/${workspace}${url}` : 'app.pipelime.ai';
  return <figure className={`pl-shot pl-shot--${frame} not-prose`}>
      <div className="pl-shot__frame">
        {frame !== 'bare' && <div className="pl-shot__bar">
            <span className="pl-shot__dots">
              <span className="pl-shot__dot" />
              <span className="pl-shot__dot" />
              <span className="pl-shot__dot" />
            </span>
            <span className="pl-shot__url">{chrome}</span>
          </div>}
        <div className="pl-shot__media">
          <img src={src} alt={alt} loading="lazy" />
          {marks.map(mark => <span key={mark.n} className="pl-shot__mark" style={{
    left: `${mark.x}%`,
    top: `${mark.y}%`
  }} aria-hidden="true">
              {mark.n}
            </span>)}
        </div>
      </div>
      {caption && <figcaption className="pl-shot__caption">{caption}</figcaption>}
    </figure>;
};

An agent does not find leads in one move. It searches for companies, scores them against your profile, picks the decision makers inside them, then verifies their addresses. So the first leads arrive gradually. The card that narrates the wait is not measuring any of that work.

<div className="pl-availability">
  <div className="pl-availability__row">
    <div className="pl-availability__label">Where</div>
    <div className="pl-availability__value"><span className="pl-path">Outreach<span className="pl-path__sep">→</span>AI Agents</span></div>
  </div>

  <div className="pl-availability__row">
    <div className="pl-availability__label">Your role needs</div>
    <div className="pl-availability__value">Read access to AI Agents <code>read-campaigns</code>. Admin, Member and Viewer have it by default.</div>
  </div>

  <div className="pl-availability__row">
    <div className="pl-availability__label">To create or change</div>
    <div className="pl-availability__value"><code>create-campaigns</code> to add one, <code>update-campaigns</code> to change one, on top of the permission above.</div>
  </div>

  <div className="pl-availability__note">If you cannot find this in your sidebar, your workspace may have a custom menu configuration. Contact support and we will check it for you.</div>
</div>

<Screenshot id="getting-started/first-leads-what-to-expect--narration" frame="bare" alt="The first-leads card on an agent dashboard: one line of narration about searching for matching companies, two pills below it counting companies found and leads found, and a row of avatars for the newest leads" caption="The line moves on a timer. The two pills underneath are the part that is counting anything." marks={[{ n: 1, x: 20, y: 30 }, { n: 2, x: 16, y: 72 }]} />

The narration (1) is a script. The counters (2) are queries against your own data. Only the second is measuring anything, and even that measures your tag rather than your sources.

## How it behaves

### The card only exists for a short window after a launch

When you create an agent yourself, the last thing the wizard does is open that agent's **Dashboard** tab and record the moment you launched it. The first-leads card is drawn from that record, so it appears only on the agent you just launched, only in the browser tab you launched it from, and only for a while afterwards. Reloading the page does not restart the window. It carries on running, and once it closes the card does not come back.

The agent [built for you during onboarding](/en/getting-started/your-first-ai-agent) never shows this card, because nobody launched it from the wizard. That is not a fault: everything the card reports is also on the agent's **Sources** tab and in the Prospects list, which is where you watch progress once the card is gone.

### The narration is a script, not a progress bar

While the card is up, it narrates the sourcing pipeline one line at a time, in this order:

* "Searching matching companies…" When the source has an estimate or a company cap to go on, the same line instead names roughly how many companies the search covers.
* "Scoring matches against your profile…"
* "Finding decision makers…"
* "Verifying contact emails…"
* "Preparing first outreach…"

The lines advance on a fixed timer from the moment the card appears, and the last one stays up indefinitely. Nothing on that ticker is fed by the agent. It does not know whether a single company has been analyzed, and it never announces that the work is finished. The same ticker runs wherever else the product makes you wait: while an email account's connection is being tested, while a payment confirms, while an import chews through its rows. It is there to make a wait legible, not to report on one.

### The two counters are the only real measurement

Under the narration sit two pills (companies found and leads found) and a row of avatars of the newest leads. Those are counted, not animated. They are polled on a fixed interval rather than pushed, and the interval is long enough to notice. A pill that has not moved since you last looked may only be waiting for its next refresh.

What they count is the agent's tag, and nothing else. Both queries ask how many companies and how many leads carry that tag, the same question the **Companies** tab asks. That is close to "what this agent's sources have produced", but it is not the same thing:

* Leads you add yourself through **Add leads** land on the agent's tag, so they are counted here alongside the sourced ones.
* Anything a source produced without the tag is not counted, and neither pill knows which source anything came from.

A count that fails is silent. The narration keeps playing, the number does not move, and the next attempt usually puts it right.

### An agent with no tag counts nothing

An agent finds its leads through its tag, and both counters are scoped by it. An agent with no tag has nothing to count with: both pills read zero and no avatars appear, whatever else is going on. The agent's **Companies** tab is absent for the same reason.

Check that first, before you conclude nothing is happening. Zeros that never move look identical to a stalled search, and as the next section explains, this particular pair of zeros never graduates to a warning.

### "Sourcing is queued" needs a count that ran and came back zero

When a company count has actually come back, and come back zero, and enough time has passed since the launch, the narration is replaced by a **Sourcing is queued — this can take a while** heading, warning that this can take a while, with "Your agent will start filling this page as soon as its search reaches the front of the queue." underneath.

<Screenshot id="getting-started/first-leads-what-to-expect--queued" frame="bare" alt="The first-leads card showing a clock icon beside a heading naming sourcing as queued and warning that this can take a while, with the companies and leads counters still visible below it" caption="A representative example, reproduced rather than seeded. Note that the counters do not go away. Only the narration does." />

All of that has to hold, which makes the message narrower than it looks. One company found is enough to keep the narration running, however slow the rest of it feels, so it is not a general slow-progress warning.

More importantly, a zero on the pill is not the same as a count of zero. The pill has no way to say "not counted", so it draws a zero whether the count came back zero, no count has run yet, or every attempt has failed. Only the first of those can produce the queued message. An agent with no tag never asks for a count at all, so it sits on "0 companies found" and never reaches the queued message, however long you wait.

<Warning>
  A card stuck on "0 companies found" with the narration still playing tells you nothing on its own. Check that the agent has a tag, then read the **Sources** tab, which reports what the sources are actually doing.
</Warning>

### The green card is the first batch, not the finish

Once enough leads carry the agent's tag, the narration is replaced by a green card. It names how many leads the agent found and keeps the same avatars. Its **See leads** button switches to the agent's **Leads** tab without leaving the agent.

<Screenshot id="getting-started/first-leads-what-to-expect--success" frame="bare" alt="The green first-leads card with a tick icon, a heading naming how many leads the agent found, a row of lead avatars and a See leads button" caption="The line under the heading is the important part: sourcing has not stopped, it has just stopped narrating." />

The card says so itself: sourcing keeps running in the background, and it invites you to review the leads while outreach ramps up. Nothing about this card means the source is done.

### After the card, the Sources tab is where you watch

Every source feeding the agent is one row on its **Sources** tab, with three numbers: **Companies** (analyzed so far, against the total cap), **Daily** (companies per day) and **Leads** found so far. The status chip on the row is what tells you whether it is working.

<Screenshot id="getting-started/first-leads-what-to-expect--source-pending" url="/ai-agents/12?tab=sources" workspace="acme-labs" alt="An agent's Sources tab with one lead source row: an amber search icon, a Pending chip beside the source name, the companies analyzed against the total cap, the daily cap, the leads count, and a play button" caption="Amber icon and a Pending chip: this source exists but has not started, so none of its numbers will move yet." />

**Pending** means exactly that: the source has not started, and its tooltip says to press the start button. What gets it out of **Pending** depends on which agent it belongs to, and the two paths are not equally patient.

The source under the agent built for you during onboarding starts itself. A background job waits for the searches behind it to be built, flips the source to **Active** as soon as they exist, and keeps re-checking until it runs out of tries. If the searches never arrive before then, the source is left **Pending** rather than failing.

A source you create yourself, in the creation wizard, or by adding one to an agent later, gets one attempt, not a job that waits. The moment it is created the app asks for it to be started, and that request is refused if the searches behind it do not exist yet. The refusal is silent and nothing tries again. The source stays **Pending** until you press the play button on its row. So a source that is still **Pending** long after you built the agent may not be starting at all. It may have missed its only attempt.

While any source on the agent is **Pending**, the agent's page re-checks for a few minutes after you open it, so a source that does start flips to **Active** in front of you without a refresh. A source you paused yourself is never restarted for you.

Two things about that row are easy to misread:

* A source that has used up today's allowance still shows the green **Active** chip, and its tooltip says the daily limit was reached and it will resume automatically tomorrow. It is not a fault and there is nothing to restart.
* The play button is only enabled for a source that is **Pending** or that somebody paused by hand. A source stopped by running out of credits, or by reaching its company cap, has to have that cause fixed first. The tooltip says so, and a source at its cap gets an **Increase limit** link next to the button.

Pausing, resuming and editing either cap all need permission to change lead sources. A read-only role sees the same numbers with none of the controls.

### Where the leads themselves land

Leads keep arriving whether or not any card is up. From inside the agent, **See leads** opens its own **Leads** tab; for the workspace as a whole they collect in the Prospects list under <UiPath>Leads → Prospects</UiPath>.

<Screenshot id="getting-started/first-leads-what-to-expect--first-prospects" url="/leads/prospects" alt="The Prospects list with the first leads an agent found, showing names, companies and stages" caption="This list is the durable view. It does not expire, and it survives closing the browser." />

## Limits

|                               |                                                                                                                                           |
| ----------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Where the launch card appears | The agent's **Dashboard** tab, and only for an agent launched from the creation wizard                                                    |
| How long it lasts             | A fixed window after the launch, in that browser tab only; a reload does not extend it                                                    |
| What the narration reports    | Nothing: the lines advance on a timer and hold on the last one                                                                            |
| What the counters report      | Companies and leads carrying the agent's tag: including leads added by hand, excluding anything untagged. Polled on an interval, not live |
| Avatars                       | The newest leads, a handful at most                                                                                                       |
| An agent with no tag          | No count is ever requested: both pills read zero and the **Companies** tab is absent                                                      |
| "Sourcing is queued"          | Only when a count has run, returned zero, and enough time has passed. Never for an agent with no tag                                      |
| A **Pending** source          | Starts itself only under the agent built during onboarding. One created by you gets a single silent attempt; after that, the play button  |
| Green card                    | Replaces the narration once the agent has found its first batch of leads; sourcing continues                                              |
| Source statuses               | Seven of them, grouped into active, paused and finished                                                                                   |
| Changing a source             | Pause, resume and both caps need permission to change lead sources                                                                        |

## Related

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="The agent setup checklist explained" icon="list" href="/en/getting-started/setup-checklist">
    The card next to this one, and the two rows only working time can tick.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Lead sources: add, edit limits, pause" icon="search" href="/en/ai-agents/lead-sources">
    Every status a source row can show, and what changes each one.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Working the Prospects list" icon="users" href="/en/leads/prospects-list">
    Where the leads land, and how to read them once they do.
  </Card>

  <Card title="How many credits does a lead cost?" icon="coins" href="/en/finding-leads/credits-per-lead">
    Why finding people is metered, and what each one spends.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>