HubSpot Ideas

ryanfcasey

Workflow delay until task complete

I would love to be able to assign a task in a workflow, then delay that workflow from proceeding until the aforementioned task is completed.

 

Here is my use case:

I have a quote request form that gets filled out. If the contact already has a HubSpot Owner assigned, then the person filling out that form gets an email from their designated HubSpot Owner. The HubSpot Owner also gets an email informing them of the new lead.

 

If they do not have a HubSpot Owner assigned, it sends an email to the contact from me. Next it assigns me a task to assign a HubSpot Owner to that particular contact. What I would like, is for the same email about the new lead to automatically go to the HubSpot Owner as soon as they are assigned to the lead.

 

Rotating leads does not work for us because our sales territories are geographic.

37 Replies
MeganLegge
HubSpot Product Team

Hi everyone,

 

I’m Megan Legge, a product manager for HubSpot’s workflows tool. Thanks for the comments and feedback!

 

This request is similar to another feature, which is currently in planning. That feature is to add a delay to a workflow that waits until something happens, for example, delay until a contact submits a form or views a page.

https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Hold-pause-an-object-in-a-workflow-delay-until-a-cond...

 

As that feature develops, we're exploring additional capabilities, and one of those is the ability to use this type of delay to wait until a task's status has changed. As more information about this feature becomes available, we'll update here with more information.

 

Thank you!

Megan 

EricaSmith
Contributor

YESSS!!!  I can't BELIVE this isn't already a thing.  Honestly.  Workflows that are task based are nearly impossible without this feature.  It is a basic function that almost every other CRM I have worked with has. 

JohannesDryft
Participant

This would be very nice!

MeganLegge
HubSpot Product Team

Hi everyone,

 

Thanks for the post and comments 😀

 

We're currently working on a feature that will enable this requested feature. We've recently released a new type of workflow delay, a "Delay until event happens" action. To build on that feature, we're currently working on adding additional functionality, that will allow you to delay a workflow until a task, created earlier in the workflow, has been completed. Stay tuned to this thread for updates!

 

Best,

Megan

flippyfloppies
Member

This feature would be incredibly useful to me (and frankly without it I'm having a hard time using workflows for any sort of major functionality). Any chance we can get a time estimate on this being added? I need to develop this workflow for my team, either with you or elsewhere, and would like to know if I should  hold out for this functionality here! Thanks! 

CCano
Participant

This feature is a HUGE need for us!! Each day, we complete hundreds of tasks using workflows, and most of them require an immediate action after they are completed. Unfortunately, it´s not possible to have that right now and it is affecting the effectiveness of our sales follow up processes.

 

Together with the support team, we found a workaround using delays. However, we had to create almost 500 additional action boxes inside a single workflow in order to go "faster" to the next action, and this is not fully working for us.

 

We know that there is the "Delay until event happens" new feature, which we are excited about since we trust it will get us closer to having a "simple" action box that allows us to -immediately- move forward to the next actions/tasks inside our workflows. And, we truly hope that in it, there is no need for additional manual entry data because that would take us back to where we are right now.

 

We really want to increase our efficiency and productivity using Hubspot so we can´t wait for this feature to be available soon!!

MeganLegge
HubSpot Product Team

Hi @flippyfloppies & @CCano 

 

Thanks for your input and feedback! We're actively working on adding this additional functionality to the new Delay until event happens action, so we hope to have this available to customers in the near term. Stay tuned to this post for updates!

 

Best,

Megan

javieryebenes
Contributor

Thanks @MeganLegge ,

 

this would be great but unfortunately the delay until an event happens is not yet available for "Tasks".

 

javieryebenes_0-1601610822679.png

 

Is this feature being developed as well? At the moment I can only delay until a property has been modified.

 

Thanks,

 

Javier

MeganLegge
HubSpot Product Team

Hi @javieryebenes 

 

The feature isn't yet available, but we're actively working on this project. I'll update here again when we have more information about the timing.

 

Thanks!

Megan

CCano
Participant

Hi @MeganLegge,

 

Great to know you continue working on this feature! Any indication as to when this could be released would be very helpful for our strategic planning. We have spent the past couple of months just trying to find workarounds on how to trigger the next actions after tasks are completed. Unfortunately, even with the help of HS support team, we have not found a way to do fully and many of our prospects continue to fall into workflow cracks (which later becomes a whole mission to recover them).  Our sales follow-up process is 100% task-based so having this feature will definitely make our processes way more efficient! Thanks a lot and we are looking forward to hearing some good news about this soon 🙂

Namola
Member

We are also desperately waiting for this feature. Looking forward to its imminent roll-out, as it is such a logical and much-needed tool.

HDanirwin
Member

Looking forward to the roll-out of this as well. Is there a timeline?

 

In the meantime, what kind of workarounds have people figured out?

MeganLegge
HubSpot Product Team

Hi everyone,

 

Thank you for your continued feedback. I'm happy to announce that we now have this feature in beta. To set up this use case, you'll now see additional options in the workflow delay, "Delay until event happens" including an option to delay until a task is updated, including for example, until the task is marked complete. This is possible when there is a task action already present in the workflow. 

 

delay until task changedelay until task change

 

If you'd like access to the beta, please send me a direct message with your HubID. Please note, the design may change as we gather feedback from beta participants.

 

Thanks!

Megan

Otterbot
Contributor

Hi Megan,

Could you explain the delay's time limit action? "If a matching event doesn't happen in the amount of time chosen, the contact will go to the next step in the workflow."

 

If the matching event doesn't happen, we would rather the contact to be removed entirely from the workflow. We would like to send an automated email only to the contact upon submission of a specific form. However, by forcing the contact to go to the next step, we wouldn't be able to accomplish this. Thank you.

MeganLegge
HubSpot Product Team

Hi @Otterbot ,

 

Thanks for the question and the details about your use case.

 

The maximum delay time could be used for the purpose of moving the contact to the next step in the workflow, or also for removing the contact from the workflow. The question is in how long you want to wait and what should happen next - as in, at what point in time would you choose to remove the contact from the workflow, in your example?

 

If, for example, you expect a contact should fill out the form within two weeks, and if they don't it's no longer relevant, you could set your max delay time to 14 days. Then, you could follow the delay until event action with an if/then branch. The branch would ask if the contact filled out the form, if so move them along the YES branch to a Send Email action, if not, they go down the NO branch and there are no further workflow actions, effectively ending the workflow for that contact.

 

Does that solve your need? If not, what options or functionality would you like to see added, to better suit the use case? Or, how could we make the available options more clear?

 

Thank you for taking the time to share your questions and concerns.

Megan

 

 

MeganLegge
HubSpot Product Team

Hi all,

 

The ability to delay a workflow until a task is updated in some way, for example - marked as completed, is now live to all workflows customers. Read more about how to use this feature here: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/workflows/use-delays#delay-until-event-happens

 

Please let me know if you have questions or feedback!

 

Best,

Megan

javieryebenes
Contributor

Thanks for the link to the post, Megan. That's brilliant. 🙂