Use delays in Agent Hub workflows

When creating an Agent Hub workflow, use delays to space out workflow actions, time your email sends, and create a more personalized experience for your prospects and customers. For example, in a customer welcome workflow, you may want to delay sending an email until a specific day of the week or maybe until a customer's birthday.

Before you get started

• When using day of the week, time of day, calendar day, and property date delays, you can choose set the delay according to your account's time zone or the contact's time zone. If you've chosen to use the contact's time zone, the following will apply:

  • If the contact has a value in their IP time zone property, HubSpot will use that time zone. If the contact doesn't have a value for that property, the account's time zone will be used instead.
  • When using this option, only the timezone when the record enters the delay is used to calculate the delay.
  • If the record's timezone changes while in the delay, it is expected that the end date and time for the delay will remain the same. A new end date and time will not be calculated based on the updated timezone.

Understand and add different delay types in Agent Hub workflows

Add delays to your workflow depending on how you would like to pause your workflow actions. There are six types of delays:

• Set amount of time: delays the workflow for a specific amount of days, hours, and minutes. Use this delay when you want to pause workflow runs for the same amount of time each run. When using this delay, you can also choose to exclude weekends from the delay.
• Day of the week: delays the workflow until specific days of the week. Use this delay when you want an action to execute only on the specified days. 
• Time of day: delays the workflow until a specific time. Use this delay when you want an action to execute only at certain times. If the record is triggered after the set time of day, the record will be delayed until the next available time, on the next day (e.g., tomorrow).
• Calendar day: delays the workflow until a specific date. Use this delay when you want an action to execute only on a specific date. 
• Property date: delays the workflow until the date populated in a date property. Use this delay when you want an action to execute only on the date based on a specific date property.
• Event occurrence: delays a workflow until an event is completed, such as a form submission or website page visit.
  • Use this delay when you want to pause a workflow until a specific action is taken. You can also base this delay on internal events, such as task completions.
  • The event must occur when the workflow run is at the delay itself. For example, a delay is configured to wait until a contact submits a form. If the contact has previously submitted a form before triggering the workflow, the contact will still remain in the delay. However, if the contact submits another form while in the delay, then the contact will exit the delay.

Delay for a set amount of time

Use this delay to pause your workflow run for a specified number of days, hours, and minutes. When setting this delay, you can select the option to use business days only. 

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Agents > Agent Hub.
2. At the top, click the Workflows tab.
3. Click the name of an existing workflow built in the agent builder.
4. In the top left or within the action workflow editor, click the + add icon.
5. In the left panel, search for and select Delay.
6. Click the Delay dropdown menu and select For a set amount of time.
7. Set how long the delay will last by using the Days, Hours, and Minutes fields. 
8. If you'd like to exclude weekends, select the Business days only (Monday - Friday) checkbox. 
   
   

Delay until a day of the week

Use these delay types to pause your workflow until specific days of the week. For example, if you're using a workflow to send promotional emails, you can add this type of delay before the email send action to pause delayed contacts until Tuesday at 11:00 AM.

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Agents > Agent Hub.
2. At the top, click the Workflows tab.
3. Click the name of an existing workflow built in the agent builder.
4. In the top left or within the action workflow editor, click the + add icon.
5. In the left panel, search for and select Delay.
6. Click the Delay dropdown menu and select Day of the week.
7. To add which days of the week to the delay, click the Delay until dropdown menu and select the checkbox next to the days you want to add. 
8. In the Time of day section, you can select from the following:
   • Use the same time of day the delay started: on the nearest selected day, the workflow run will continue at the same time, that the delay started. 
   • Choose a custom time: set a custom time for the workflow run to continue on the selected day. 
     
     • To base the selected time on your HubSpot account timezone, select Use account time zone.
     • To base the selected time on the contact's time zone, select Use contact time zone.
       
       

Delay until a time of day

Use these delay types to pause your workflow until a specific time of day.

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Agents > Agent Hub.
2. At the top, click the Workflows tab.
3. Click the name of an existing workflow built in the agent builder.
4. In the top left or within the action workflow editor, click the + add icon.
5. In the left panel, search for and select Delay.
6. Click the Delay dropdown menu and select Time of Day.
7. Click the Delay until dropdown menu and select the time that the workflow should trigger. 
   • To base the selected time on your HubSpot account timezone, select Use account time zone.
   • To base the selected time on the contact's time zone, select Use contact time zone.
     
     

Delay until a calendar day

Use this delay to pause records until a specific date. If a date has already passed when a record enters the delay, the record will immediately proceed to the next action which will execute immediately. After, the record will continue moving through the workflow.

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Agents > Agent Hub.
2. At the top, click the Workflows tab.
3. Click the name of an existing workflow built in the agent builder.
4. In the top left or within the workflow builder, click the + add icon.
5. In the left panel, search for and select Delay.
6. Click the Delay dropdown menu and select Calendar day.
7. Click the Delay until field and select the specific date. 
8. Click the Time of day field and select the time when the workflow should trigger.
   • To base the selected time on your HubSpot account timezone, select Use account time zone.
   • To base the selected time on the contact's time zone, select Use contact time zone.
     
     

Delay until a property date

Use this delay to pause a workflow until a date or datetime from a property. For example, you can use the On date option to delay the sending of an email based on the contact's birthday property. The action can be performed on the date, before the date, or after the date. 

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Agents > Agent Hub.
2. At the top, click the Workflows tab.
3. Click the name of an existing workflow built in the agent builder.
4. In the top left or within the action workflow editor, click the + add icon.
5. In the left panel, search for and select Delay.
6. Click the Delay dropdown menu and select Property date
7. Click the Delay until field and select a property. You can select a property using the record from the workflow trigger, or from a CRM targeting action such as the Find one record action. 
8. Select the On date, Before date, or After date ciradio button.
   • If you select Before date or After date, enter the number of days, hours,or minutes before or after the date property.
9. In the Time of day section, configure when you'd like the action to execute:
   • Use the time from the date property: use the time value from a datetime property. This option will only appear with compatible datetime properties. If not, the option will be greyed out.
   • Choose a custom time: set a custom time for your action to execute. You can choose to use your account's timezone or your contact's timezone.
     • To base the selected time on your HubSpot account timezone, select Use account time zone.
     • To base the selected time on the contact's time zone, select Use contact time zone.
       
       

Use this delay to pause a workflow until a specified event occurs. For example, delay a workflow until a targeted contact record visits a page or fill out a form. If an event has already happened before a delay begins, the delay will still occur. 

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Agents > Agent Hub.
2. At the top, click the Workflows tab.
3. Click the name of an existing workflow built in the agent builder.
4. In the top left or within the action workflow editor, click the + add icon.
5. In the left panel, search for and select Delay.
6. Click the Delay dropdown menu and select Event occurs.
7. To base the delay on an event that happens to enrolled records in the workflow, such as a contact's form submission or email open: 
   • Click the Data source dropdown menu and select your data source. For example, you can use Contact from trigger, Associated to contact from trigger, or another CRM record targeting action such as Find one associated record. 
   • Click the Add filter dropdown menu and select an event.
   • Scroll or type to search, then select a property to filter by.
   • Select an option, then set your criteria.
   • Once you've set your criteria, click Done. Records that meet the criteria will exit the delay. 
8. After setting the delay event, set the amount of time that a workflow will wait until continuing.

Understand what happens when a delay is edited

Editing a delay will affect any records that are currently waiting in the delay.

• When you delete a delay, the workflow will immediately proceed to the next action. It is not recommended to delate delays in an active workflow. For example, deleting a delay may cause a marketing email to immediately send. 
• When editing a Time of day or Day of the week delay, the delay will be recalculated to be in the future. Records waiting in the delay will continue to delay until that future day or time. However, if you edit the delay to be the current day with no specific time, delayed records will exit the delay immediately.

• When you edit a Set amount of time delay, the records waiting at the delay will immediately be rescheduled. Rescheduling will take into account the amount of time that has already passed in the original delay.
  • If you make a delay longer, the workflow run will be rescheduled to complete the remainder of the new delay length. For example, if you adjust a delay from one hour to two hours, records that have already waited 30 minutes will wait for an additional hour and 30 minutes.
  • If you make a delay shorter, the workflow run will either be rescheduled to the new length, or exit the delay. For example, if you adjust a delay from two hours to one hour, a workflow run that has currently been delayed for 30 minutes will wait for an additional 30 minutes. A run that has already been delayed by an hour will exit the delay immediately.
• Editing the Calendar day or property value associated with a Property date delay will affect the delay for all records waiting in the delay:
  
  • If the property value or Calendar day is changed to a date further in the future, the delay will extend accordingly.
  • If the property value or Calendar day is changed to an earlier date, the delay will shorten accordingly.
  • If the property value or Calendar day is changed to a date in the past, the delay will end and the record will automatically move on to the next action.