Workflow Pause

A workflow pause is used to pause a workflow until a specified date, or time period has elapsed.

When the time has elapsed, the workflow will automatically resume and continue running until the workflow execution hits a workflow object that requires user interaction. The Workflow Pause Until object is very handy for designing workflow that needs to “hiberate” for a time-period and then automatically “wake up” and continue working. This is useful for HR Onboarding/Offboarding, delayed requests, time-sensitive operations, Change Management and more.

Use

A workflow pause can be inserted anywhere within the workflow (except the very first object), and multiple workflow pause objects can be used within a workflow.

A workflow pause requires a time period, or “resume date” to be set. This can either be set as a time-period offset (eg. In 2 hours), or a specific date that has been set by a workflow variable.

Worfklow ideas

Set and/or calculate dates

Use dates within the job to either act at the pause-until trigger date, or calculate a new date based on another date. Oftentime, a workflow will require something to happen before a certain date. Use the workflow date variables and date modifiers to set/calculate a date that can be used by the workflow pause object. Dates are often stored in Control Sets - consider using these.

Prompt for a date

Prompt the user for a date and use that as the pause trigger.

Loop back to a pause until if the conditions are not right

There is no reason why the workflow pauses cannot be re-used in the same workflow. If the process requires it, it is possible to loop back to the workflow pause and re-start the time-interval pause. In effect, this creates a time-based delay that is used multiple times. The only way out of the loop is if a decision process branches out of it. This may be a user decision, a variable-check decision, or some other branching method that progresses the workflow away from the pause.

This may be useful for things like…

• Every X hours, try something (scripts, prompts, check conditions / variables etc.)
• Every 2 days, send an email (Job resolution survey?), and then exit the loop after 2 attempts

Remember also that automation features such as the Priority Manager and Triggered Events can also do time-based actions.

Cascade Workflow Pause for a staggered series of events

If the business process requires it, you can configure a process that will traverse through a series of pauses before executing some action. This maybe helpful in sales/CRM style workflows where an email, or other action is performed at defined intervals after the job is logged. eg.

See also

Workflow pause

Variables

Workflow variables overview

Set a variable based on user input

Set a variable based on a script

Workflow Concepts

Workflow Objects

Planning for Workflow

Workflow Concepts