How to Delay Workflow

With Jotform’s Pause element feature, you can delay your workflow and choose when to continue to the next step. You can set a delay for a few hours, days, months, or even years. This gives recipients more time to respond and helps you control when the next step takes place.

Setting Up the Pause Element

Whether you’re setting up a new workflow or updating an existing one, adding a Pause element gives you more control over when each step continues. Here’s how to set it up: 

1. In Form Builder, in the orange navigation bar at the top of the page, click on Settings.

2. Then, in the menu on the left side of the page, click on Workflows.

3. Next, scroll to the bottom of the page, then hover your mouse over the Workflow, and then click on Edit.

4. Next, in the Workflow Builder, click on Add Element on the left side of the page.

5. In the Workflow Elements menu that opens, scroll down to the Logic section and then click on the Pause element. Or, drag and drop it to where you want it to be on your workflow.

6. Then, click on the Pause element. 

7. In the Pause window that opens, under the For a Duration section, enter the amount of time you want to pause the workflow. 
8. Now, click on the Downward Arrow icon next to Hour and select a time unit that you want.

That’s it! Your workflow will now pause for the set duration and automatically continue once the time is up.

Manually Ending the Pause to Resume the Workflow

You don’t always have to wait until the scheduled pause ends. If you want the workflow to continue sooner, you can manually end the pause and resume the workflow right away. Here’s a quick how-to:

1. At the top of your Workspace page, click on Filter.
2. Then, in the Dropdown menu that opens, hover your mouse over Forms, and on the right side of it, click on Only.

3. Next, hover your mouse over the form you want to archive submissions for, and click on Inbox on the right side of the page.

4. Now, in Jotform Inbox, select the submission where you want to end the pause.
5. Then, scroll down to the Paused section, click on the Three Dots icon, and then select Continue.

6. Next, in the End Pause and Continue window that opens, under the Reason section, enter a short explanation for ending the pause.
7. Now, click on Continue at the bottom of the window.

That’s it. Your workflow will resume right away instead of waiting for the scheduled pause to end.