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RE: Workflow guy from last week. I’ve narrowed my problem down. I need more help

After much more testing with both scheduled and entry based workflows, I have come to the conclusion that the problem is that none of the delays on any of our workflows are working.

 

I created a new very straightforward workflow with the sole purpose of emailing me when it moves between states. It’s scheduled on a 30 minute schedule, and there are only two states with one transition between the two. When there’s no delay on the transition, the workflow runs perfectly. When I add a one hour delay on the transition the record just gets stuck on entry.

 

I double checked with some other workflows that were created by people who no longer work here that I have confirmed with them used to work, and those ones are also getting stuck on delay now. They haven’t been touched.

 

The only major change that happened about a year ago is that our partner helped us with a project that moved all our customer records to a different subsidiary. I can’t think of a reason why this would cause issues with the delay in a workflow but they have caused unexpected problems in other parts of our CRM so I’m not going to rule it out yet.

 

Are there any settings that I’m missing that would prevent a delay from kicking?

 

Any and all help is much appreciated. Thank you.

STC Rookie Asked on September 30, 2019 in Administration.
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1 Answers
I’m thinking this is from Tyler S from the slack, channel.  My apologies if not, but I believe this answer is relevant regardless.  Basically, my understanding is that you need some sort of user event (view/edit/save) on the record to trigger scheduled transitions.  Kevin had some suggestions for a workaround build.  tl;dr I pasted our full conversation below for posterity in case anyone else is interested in the details…
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@Tyler S The delay doesn’t trigger the transition itself, it just delays the triggering of the transition.  You still need to have a view/edit/save user event to actually make the workflow do anything
Got suckered by that myself a while back
KevinJ Of Kansas 12:28 PM

I think Tyler’s been asking about this for at least a week

my idea is still the same
break your workflow up into chunks in separate workflows
use custom fields to manage movement between workflows
with dates for driving it
more work, but at least it will function.
Tyler S 12:30 PM

I’m confused, so I can’t just have it move to the next transition in a set amount of time? it has to have a view/edit/save to move it along?

and yeah I’m sorry for being a bother with this  issue, I guess I need a bit more guidance. I get breaking things up into chunks, but I still need it to be on a schedule and I don’t get how to do that without a delay
KevinJ Of Kansas 12:31 PM

That seems to be what James is saying. I have tried to use transition delays all of once or twice before I went. Nah.

So you have a date field call it “workflow 1” for example.
That date field is used as a criteria in a saved search that is used for a workflow
then you have that field get set as part of a process to kick off your workflows.
Then you have another date field “workflow 2” – if I want a 3 day delay after workflow 1 executes I have workflow 1 set it for 3 days after the current date.
Then if I have another workflow that uses my second date field as a criteria, and then sets field values appropriately
it doesn’t scale well, but at least it operates on the schedule that you are looking for.
You probably need additional checkbox fields for marking that step 1 has completed
Tyler S 1:08 PM
so I get what you’re saying. I can definitely build it like that, but I agree that it won’t scale well. Am I understanding correctly that this means that delays just simply don’t work the way they’re intended to?
I’m going to look into what James was saying about the event as well, but ideally I’d like this all to automate without actually having to do anything
KevinJ Of Kansas 1:09 PM

I think the delays work the way they are intended – just that they don’t work the way you intend for them to work.

Maybe have another workflow that ticks/unticks a box on your records once a day?
or maybe put a delay in an action to set a checkbox that gets unset when it enters the next state. Use that field when it is set as a criteria for moving to the next state?
Tyler S 1:25 PM

@KevinJ Of Kansas I’m just confused because there are workflows that were built the way I’m describing in 2016 that have been running properly for years, and now aren’t. I’m just wondering if something has changed in recent history. Maybe I’m not communicating my issue properly

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Intermediate Answered on October 11, 2019.
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