Customizing Delivery Timeframes Within Workflows

There are multiple options for setting up the timing of workflows. In this tutorial, we will show you how to use time frames, or “windows” to customize your workflow actions and timing using delivery windows.

You can set up a default setting for the workflow as a whole or use wait steps to customize just certain actions.

Method 1: Using Default Settings To Customize the Workflow Delivery Window

• Navigate to the Workflow Builder

• Click into Settings
• Under “Time Window” choose “Any Time” or “Specific Time”
  • Any time: messages can be sent from the workflow any time, any day.
  • Specific time: messages are restricted to specific windows of day/time you set (i.e. Mon-Fri 8am-5pm).

• Here’s an example of how you can set the window to Saturday and Sunday 8 am-12 pm:

• Any day highlighted in blue is open for sending. So, the email will only be sent on Saturday or Sunday.

Method 2: Using Workflow Actions For Timing

There may be instances where you want to be more specific with the delivery window, such as sending an email communication on the 5th of the month unless it’s a weekend (and, in that case, you’d want the email to be sent out the following Monday).

• Create an “If/Else” Workflow condition action, and select the Date Time condition.

• Select the current day of the month as the 5th and the day of the week is not Sunday.

• Save the changes made in the workflow.
• The contact will go down the YES or NO path accordingly.

Note: An important thing to note here is that the conditions you set up include “AND” and “OR” functions. If you use the  “And” function between different conditions, then all the conditions should be “True” for to go to the “Yes” path. Similarly, if the function “OR” is used, this means that at least one (1) condition should hold “true” to make the lead go to the “Yes” path of the workflow.

• If the contact goes down the NO path, it means the condition was not met. This means it IS Sunday, so you will want to set up a wait action for one day, and the action will occur one day later, on Monday:

• If the lead goes down the YES path, it IS NOT Sunday (both conditions were met). However, it could still be Saturday. Therefore, you’ll want to set up another “If/Else” action.
• Set up the condition for “Current day of the week” >  “is not” > “Saturday.”

• If this condition is met, meaning it is NOT Saturday, the contact will go down the YES path, and you can add your email action or anything else.
• If the condition is not met, meaning it IS Saturday, the contact will go down the NO path.
• Add a wait step for two (2) days (to get to Monday), and then you can add your email action or any other actions.

• You can set the Wait step to go to a specific step that comes later in the workflow instead of just moving to the next one. This provides the ability to skip a larger sequence of Steps in workflows that are time-sensitive.
• You can also set the Wait step to fire at an Exact time.