AND/OR in Wait Action
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David Hall
One of the biggest drawbacks in the automation is creating the timing you want. Currently, if I want something to go out on November 23rd, I have to create a IF statement, is it November, if yes, is it before the 23rd, if yes, then wait until 23rd. If not, wait until November, if it is November, after the 23rd, wait until the next month then go to wait until November.
This is INSANITY!
In a wait action, there should be AND/OR functions so I can wait until Current Month is November AND Current Day is 23. Every other workflow builder we have ever used has had this simple function. Without it, there is WAY too much room for error.
We recently had a situation where Happy Thanksgiving emails went out on Christmas because of a minor workflow error that created a MAJOR problem for the client. The goal of GHL is to help simplify all of these things.
Simple items that should be added into the waits:
- Month and Date (like November 23rd)
- Day of Week and Week of Month (like 4th Thursday of November)
These types of fixes are FAR more important than adding new features. The system is already very powerful, but things like this and making sure that ALL data is integrated everywhere is holding the system back.
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Eli Ferry
Hey David, I have 2 possible solutions for you. They are still more complex than something like Date Timers in Keap where if it is passed the date/time stated, it will simply skip to the next timer, but they do work. I would recommend #2 for your situation.
#1)
Set up a wait timer and enable the advance window. Make sure to select the day of the week that the date you want will be. Then Change the "Window" option to be "Exact" and set the time you want. It's important to make sure you know whether your workflow is in contact time or account time here to avoid misfires. Finally, under additional filters you can select "Current Day of Month" is and then whatever day of the month that day is. For Thanksgiving, you would make sure only Thursday was selected and then for the additional filter current day of the month would have been the 28th.
One thing to note here is that it will not skip this type of timer if the time has passed.
#2)
Use a "Set Event Start Date" action at the beginning of the workflow. This allows you to the wait for "Event / Appointment Time" instead of "Time Delay." These timers have an option at the bottom that asksa "If the timing of this wait step is already in the past, how should the contact proceed?" There are 3 options: move to the next step, move to a specific step, or skip all outbound communication actions, till next wait or Event Start Date action. This set event start date will not interfere with any appointments they have booked and will only affect this particular workflow's timers.
For your example, you could have set up the Event Start Date to be noon on Thanksgiving, and then you could set the wait timer to fire 1 hour before the event time. This would fire your email at 11am on Thanksgiving day, and if someone is added to the workflow after this has already passed, they will automatically skip this communication assuming you set up the timer to have that setting enabled.
This is likely your best bet for what you are looking for, but again make sure you are paying attention to whether you are using contact timezone or account timezone here.
Hope this helps!
- Eli