Competing Workflows

Smart CRM & Sales Hub Tips, Tricks & Best Practices
1

Hey all!
I have two workflows that are creating a problem because they are working in tandem and creating two tasks at the same time. The triggers for them are a form fill, and the other is 3x web visits. This is meant to ID hot leads.
It’s getting annoying for sales reps to manage both of the tasks that are created at the same time. Wondering if I can set the workflows up so it will check if there is already a task created in the past hour or something (with a certain title) to prevent this from happening?
Appreciate any thoughts you may have.
- Matthew

2

Hi @Stacks42,

Not within an hour but with a day, yes. Simply click into the enrolment criteria box and in the left sidebar, click the tan for unenrollment. In there you can specify a goal which will unenrolled a contact immediately. Here you would add a goal of an associated activity with a specific Task Title and Create date less than 1 day ago. Repeat the same thing in the other workflow :slightly_smiling_face:

Best regards!

3

Hey @Stacks42,

Here are some workaround that you can use in your workflows to avoid creating duplicate tasks by adding logic to check if a task with a specific title already exists.

Option 1: Use Workflow Enrollment Triggers to Avoid Overlap

  1. Edit Workflow Enrollment Triggers:
    • For each workflow, add an enrollment trigger to check if a task with a specific title or creation time already exists.
  2. For example:
    • Add a filter like: Activity Type > Task > Title contains “Hot Lead” (or your task title).
    • Add another filter: Activity Date is less than X hours ago (adjust to 1 hour, for example).
    • This prevents the workflow from triggering if a similar task already exists.

Option 2: Add Workflow Goal Criteria

  1. Open each workflow and define a goal to automatically unenroll contacts if certain conditions are met.
  2. Set the goal criteria to check for:
    • A task with a specific title.
    • Task creation within the last hour.
  3. Example:
    • Activity Type > Task > Title contains “Hot Lead”
    • AND Activity Date is less than 1 hour ago.
    • This ensures contacts unenroll from the workflow if such a task exists.

Option 3: Use Conditional Logic in Workflow Actions

  1. Add an If/Then Branch in the workflow to check for existing tasks before creating a new one.
  2. In the branch, check for:
    • Activity Type > Task > Title contains “Hot Lead”
    • AND Activity Date is less than 1 hour ago.
  3. If the condition is met:
    • Do nothing.
  4. If the condition is not met:
    • Create the task.

Give it a try using any of these method and let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you.

4

Hey @Stacks42 - this is a classic “race condition” problem, and it’s definitely annoying! The native workarounds are smart, but they’re a pain to keep perfectly in sync across multiple workflows.

I’m a solo developer and I built a free tool to solve this exact issue. It’s a simple workflow action that acts as a gatekeeper, ensuring only one task gets created even if both workflows fire.

It’s not on the public marketplace yet as I’m looking for a few experts to give some early feedback. If you’re open to it, I’d be happy to personally walk you through the 2-minute setup. You can see how it works at https://workflowheros.com/task-sentinel